On National Doctor's Day, we're presenting #Covispiracy, a magazine our team have been working for over six months.
This magazine aimed to capture what COVID-19 has looked like in India, what little was done right and where our leaders made mistakes that cost lives in the lakhs.
The past two years have been life-altering for people globally. At Youth For Climate India, we felt the impact of the second wave of COVID-19 as much as any other institution in the country. Our team members fell sick, many losing their loved ones and struggling to secure basic medical supplies during that time.
Along with our overburdened, tired and sick medical staff many young people spent countless sleepless nights helping others, trying to save lives by providing them information on availability of hospital beds, medicines and oxygen cylinders during severe shortages.
As we found ourselves amidst such a helpless, and dreadful situation our team had to make a decision on what a youth group like ours should be doing during this time. We collectively decided that our responsibility as part of civil society is to highlight the structural issues which were exposed due to the second wave of the pandemic.
In the past six months, our team have worked on a magazine which aimed to capture what COVID-19 has looked like in India: what little was done right and where our leaders made mistakes that cost lives in the lakhs. The magazine also explores the profit-making business of vaccines and India’s vaccination drive, the country’s medical infrastructure, the digital divide and deepened inequalities brought by the pandemic, and the experience of healthcare workers and other frontline workers.
It is essential that we raise questions about who benefitted at a time when the majority of us suffered. In the beginning of 2000s, 80% of India’s vaccines for the Universal Immunisation Programme were sourced from the public sector. Today, 90% are sourced from the private sector at a higher cost.
The pandemic more than ever before exposed the gaps in our healthcare system.Lack of medical facilities in all states, especially in rural areas has always been a problem, but now more than ever it is in the public consciousness. Hence it's our duty to continue to raise questions about healthcare infrastructure in the country.
As heat waves, cyclones, floods and other natural disasters increase in severity and frequency a robust public healthcare system will help us battle the worst effects of climate change on human health. As our water bodies get polluted, water-borne diseases spread and air pollution makes millions sick, demanding a better healthcare system inherently becomes a part of fighting for climate justice.
As India today observes, National Doctors Day- we would like to take a moment to recognize the contribution of our health workers and doctors in dealing with COVID-19 and present you magazine COVID-19SPIRACY
Read magazine on >> bit.ly/YFC_CovidMag