One can imagine the plight of an ordinary person, with no strings to pull, if a former president and secretary of the Indian Medical Association, with a family of doctors, needed influence to get a bed
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There are several takeaways from a report in this paper citing how Dr Vasant Shenoy, former president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and well known General Physician (GP) is recovering from COVID-19. The first is the havoc that rumours on social media can wreak. The report states how gossip mills went into overdrive about Dr Shenoy, saying he had passed away, while all the while he was alive, battling COVID-19 in a hospital in the western suburbs.
His family was peppered with condolence messages. They had to actually issue a common message to all that Dr Shenoy was very much alive. All this was happening while they were battling with the stress that comes with a family member being afflicted.
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This once again proves how important it is to check and double-check the credibility and veracity of these messages spinning madly on the COVID-19 carousel. This information, though false, leading to condolence messages, must have proved extremely irksome for loved ones, already under tremendous strain. Rash forwards, however harmless, or supposedly informative are always counterproductive. The other takeaway is the fact that even this doctor's family found it difficult to get a hospital bed. They had to use the local MLA's influence to get a bed and finally, to get a specific medicine needed to treat his condition.
One can imagine the plight of an ordinary person, with no strings to pull, if a former president and secretary of the Indian Medical Association, with a family of doctors, needed influence to get a bed.
All the nightmare stories about desperate families frantically looking for ambulances or hospital beds resonate even more now. Try to make this process smoother for the common man. We hear reassuring noises from the government but obviously, this scenario remains unchanged. Urgent addressing of this, and redressal needed, leaders.
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