Thread by @DrEricDing

WHERE ARE THE AID? Despite 25 🌏flights loaded with 300 tonnes of emergency #COVID19 relief supplies landing in Delhi 🇮🇳 (5500 oxygen concentrators, 3200 O2 cylinders, & remdesivir) in 5 days, no domestic flights have transported them. Hospitals waiting.🧵amp.scroll.in/article/993973…

2) “The emergency aid could save lives. But it seems not to have reached even those who are gasping for oxygen a few km away.
“As far as I know, we have not received anything so far,” said Dr Nutan Mundeja, Director General of Health Services, Delhi government.”

3) “No domestic flights have taken off to carry the supplies to other parts of India, nor have states been informed about their share by the Centre.” Like this one…

https://twitter.com/MEAIndia/status/1387590542574297092

4) “Yet, hospitals and families continue to make desperate appeals for oxygen on social media, while the status of the emergency supplies remains unclear, barring oxygen generation units sent by France which have been earmarked for eight hospitals, six of them in Delhi.”

https://twitter.com/MEAIndia/status/1388574009399283712

5) “Not just Delhi, the emergency relief supplies seem not to have been dispatched to other states in 🇮🇳.

“There is no record of Covid related medical aid being sent to domestic destinations,” said the spokesperson of Delhi Airport around noon on Monday.
thehindu.com/news/national/…

6) The Ministry of External Affairs said an Empowered Group of Ministers and officials was fielding requests from state governments. But officials in 6 states on Monday that they have not heard from the Centre about whether they will be receiving any share in emergency supplies.

7) “We really need these supplies, but we don’t even know they have arrived,” said Kumar Rahul, secretary in Punjab health department.

8) Tamil Nadu’s health Dept had not heard from the Centre either. “As of now we have got no intimation about any state allotment,” said J Radhakrishnan, principal secretary in state health depart. “We don’t know what has been received by Delhi and for whom it has been received.”

9) Bihar, which has seen a surge in the last few weeks, has also not received any of the emergency supplies. A senior health official said the state could do well with some supplies of oxygen concentrators and cylinders.

10) In adjoining Jharkhand, Ravi Kumar Shukla, the state’s national health mission director, said the state had “no information” of any emergency supplies being allocated to it.

11) Much of the Covid-19 assistance arriving at the Delhi Airport is being handed over to the Indian government through the Indian Red Cross Society, a non-profit organisation with close links with the government.

13) “Consignments that come from abroad are generally handed over to Indian Red Cross Society,” said the airport spokesperson. “It is they who distribute as per GOI [Government of India] directive.”

14) BUT—secretary general of Indian Red Cross, said its role was confined to getting consignments cleared through customs & handing them over to HLL Lifecare Limited, a government company which was handling storage & logistics. “The allocation is done by the [health] ministry”

15) Another official of the Indian Red Cross, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the relief material was being stored in HLL Lifecare Limited’s warehouses in the airport’s cargo section.

16) The official said some of the materials were “under transit”, but refused to give out more details. “You should contact the HLL and the ministry,” the official said.
HLL Lifecare Limited’s chairperson Beji George also refused to field queries.

17) Asked if any materials have been dispatched at all, George said: “It is coming and going. You may check with the ministry of health.”

18) Questions emailed to Mandeep Bhandari, the joint secretary in the health ministry who oversees the HLL Lifecare Limited’s operations, went unanswered. He did not respond to phone calls.

19) A person who works in the humanitarian aid sector, who did not want to be identified, said the Indian Red Cross Society did not have adequate personnel to handle relief operations on this scale.

20) Even oxygen concentrators purchased by a private hospital in Delhi were lying stacked up at the Delhi Airport, its lawyer told the Delhi High Court around 1.30 pm on Monday.

22) The court asked the Centre to furnish details about the number of concentrators pending customs clearance at airport. In a statement released several hours later, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs said “no such consignment is pending with custom authorities”.

23) the latter story on O2 equipment held up in customs is major news in India too.

ndtv.com/india-news/oxy…

24) As aid is sent to India during #COVID19 emergency, it is odd that its government is spending huge money on a new Parliament & new residence complex for @narendramodi instead of solving the pandemic crisis and building hospital infrastructure. 🤔

25) I wonder… if will Indian govt now admit there is an oxygen shortage and deliveries arriving if Modi’s own party leaders crackdown on any talk of oxygen shortages? It’s a weird dystopian reality in India for many reasons.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1387006905776750598

26) the Indian govt crackdowns on people begging for oxygen must end. It’s not criminal to ask for help to save a loved one.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1387405560480477186

27) This is what India needs to focus on more than anything to stop its current crisis…

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1389650334306480130