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When Shyam Narayan arrives in a red rickshaw at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in New Delhi, he can barely breathe.

It soon becomes clear to his desperate family members that the overworked hospital staff cannot help.

Only a few minutes after his arrival, the family man is rolled out lifeless on a stretcher.

Previously, his family had tried all night to find an oxygen bed but had been turned away by the hospitals.

Narayan is one of the numerous victims of the devastating corona wave that is overwhelming the 1.3 billion-inhabitant nation of India these days: Because around 350,000 new infections are added every day, a battle for beds, oxygen and medication has broken out in the hospitals.

The staff works to the point of exhaustion and yet cannot prevent the collapse of the health system.

There were more than 2,800 other corona deaths in India on Monday.

In front of the hospital in northeast Delhi, the flow of Covid 19 patients who arrive by ambulance or rickshaw does not stop.

But the beds are already in the corridors and are already double and triple occupied, so that the security staff rejects patients and desperate relatives.

Some wait in line, others stop auto rickshaws to look elsewhere.

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Narayan died before he could be cared for.

“My brother has five children and the youngest is so small.

What will I say to his wife? ”Complains his brother Ram.

Deaths in front of the hospitals are commonplace - and those who have not been admitted at all do not appear in the official death statistics.

"There were three bodies next to him and he panicked"

The 17-year-old Mohan Sharma supports his coughing grandfather, provides him with water and puts an oxygen mask on him.

The family managed to find a bed for the 65-year-old, but circumstances drove him outside: "There were three bodies next to him and he panicked," says Sharma.

"So I took him out."

Not even 24 hours earlier, Sharma's father died of Covid-19 in the same line in front of the hospital.

"He gasped for air, we took off his mask and he cried and said: Save me, please save me," says Sharma.

"But I couldn't do anything, I could only watch him die."

There aren't enough oxygenated beds

Source: AFP / MAUDE BRULARD

The staff works to the point of exhaustion

Source: AFP / MAUDE BRULARD

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There was no time for the 17-year-old to mourn: shortly afterwards, his grandfather needed help.

In addition, the young person has to look after his mother, who takes care of the grandmother who has Covid-19 at home.

Ravi Kumar managed to accommodate his 80-year-old grandfather after a night in line.

"I saw three bodies in six minutes," he says.

“There are no beds in there, just one couch at a time with two patients at a time.” The night before, Kumar's grandfather had been expelled from a private clinic when the oxygen there ran out.

Relatives are desperately trying to find beds

“This is government failure,” says Kumar.

The government did not bother to improve the infrastructure last year.

"If this is the situation in India's capital, then you can imagine how bad it looks in rural areas."

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Behind him, Irfan Salmani is desperately trying to find a bed for his 40-year-old sister.

“I tried it non-stop for three days, drove from one hospital to another,” he reports.

“I've never seen anything so terrible in my life.

What can I do?

I haven't eaten or drunk anything since this morning.

I get one rejection after the other. "

His sister is sitting on the floor in a yellow sari, gasping for breath.

She wears an oxygen mask.

But the oxygen bottle is missing from the hose.