Video Editor: Puneet Bhatia
Video Producer: Vaishali Sood
Over one lakh people have died of COVID-19 in India in the last 9 months, even as India's trajectory to the top of the coronavirus chart continues unabated. Among them are countless healthcare workers fighting from the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout this period, the central government has consistently maintained that health is a state subject and they have no data of the deaths of healthcare workers. Doctors, nurses, ward workers, cleaners, hospital administration, working endlessly, tirelessly, without a breather, but their deaths have not been counted.
The Indian Medical Association called out the government for its callous response to the lives lost and released a list of 382 doctors who died of COVID-19. Unfortunately no such lists exist for other healthcare workers.
Laid down neatly, in an excel file, are a list of names, ages and places, each column telling its own story. A 27-year-old young resident in a COVID ward in Delhi, a 55-year-old doctor in Tamil Nadu denied dignity in death, an 81-year-old veteran not giving up on his patients, a 33-year-old pregnant doctor in Maharashtra.
They are not nameless, their lives matter, their death counts.
This is The Quint's tribute to the doctors lost to the pandemic.
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