And yet, at one of the best hospitals in India, he is the doctor who must decide who will live and who will die when patients come to him gasping for breath, their family members begging for mercy.As India's healthcare system teeters on the verge of collapse during a brutal second wave of the novel coronavirus, Aggarwal makes those decisions during a 27-hour workday that includes a grim overnight shift in charge of the emergency room at his New Delhi hospital.
In the emergency room, conditions are even more cramped. Patients and relatives crowd every available space, many wearing no protection except for a simple cloth mask. In normal circumstances, Holy Family is one of the best hospitals in the country, attracting patients from across the world – and it still is, considering the conditions in government hospitals, where patients lie two to a bed, or die outside on trolleys in the baking sun.But the facility is still in a desperate position.
That system has long broken down, and the on-duty doctor in the ER is now one of the most critical in the hospital. A security guard, Mahendar Baisoyar, is posted outside the emergency room door to ensure relatives don't try to secure a bed"by force", he says. Slumped in the back of a car, 62-year-old Vijay Gupta is one patient turned away, his family and friends debating what to do next.There is a moment of indecision as he and Gupta's son, Kushal, debate what to do next.Others in the ER are so sick they are in urgent need of a ventilator, and Aggarwal pleads with families to look elsewhere. But they already have.
Sumit Ray, the hospital's medical superintendent and head of the ICU, says the hospital staff are doing everything they can."The doctors and nurses are demoralised," he says."They know they can do better, but they just don't have the time." "It's really a depressing atmosphere," he says of the hospital as he eats from a takeaway carton of biryani."I just want to have a break of an hour or so outside the hospital so that I can just recollect myself. Because I have to be there for another 24 hours."Aggarwal used to barricade himself in his first-floor apartment, but his mother has other ideas.
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