The Rural Front Line: In a Chhattisgarh hospital, patients bear the brunt of the poorly planned COVID lockdown

'On the first day of a three-week nationwide lockdown, Jan Swasthya Sahyog’s hospital, in Ganiyari village of Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur district, remained largely empty. In a place like Ganiyari, an empty hospital does not mean that less people are ill; it means the ill are simply not getting medical care. At 8 pm on 24 March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, effective from midnight. With just four hours’ notice, the lockdown left both the JSS and its patients unprepared to face the many problems it created...'

[Continue reading on The Caravan.]