Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


India Races to Build up Health Facilities as Pandemic Rages

Anjana Pasricha

   NEW DELHI - After rushing to take care of her parents when they were
   infected with COVID 19 last month, Suhasini Sood began making frantic
   calls to hospitals. Her parents are more than 70 years old.

   "You had read in the news that people had gone to hospitals and
   hospitals had refused patients and that they had said no beds were
   available. So that was a big fear," recalls Sood, who lives in the
   Indian capital, New Delhi-- home to more than 20 million people.

   While some hospitals refused, others said they would only take a call
   when she took them in. "No one committed that if he is seriously ill,
   we will give him a bed."

   To plug the huge shortfall of hospital beds that emerged as the
   pandemic raged, cities like Delhi have raced to set up huge temporary
   centers-- a 10,000-facility fitted with cardboard beds and operated by
   the paramilitary recently opened on the premises of a religious center.

   Train coaches and even marriage halls have also been converted into
   COVIDcare centers in Delhi. In the financial hub of Mumbai, new field
   hospitals that opened this week include one on a horse racing track.
   The city has already set up temporary health care facilities in a
   stadium and a planetarium.

   New Delhi and Mumbai are India's worst affected cities.

   The rush to open temporary centers and build up health infrastructure
   was inevitable-- the number of coronavirus cases is reaching near the
   one million mark.

   That is because the country's abysmally low spending on public health
   has left its health infrastructure falling hugely short, say experts.

.