COVID-19 spirals out of control in Nepal: ‘Every emergency room is full now’
Surging caseloads, spiking mortality rates, and supply shortages threaten one of India’s neighboring nations.
ByBen Weissenbach
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Just before midnight on Sunday, Anup Bastola—chief consultant for Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population, lead doctor at Sukraraj Hospital in Kathmandu, and the man who identified Nepal’s first-ever COVID-19 patient a year ago—felt, for the first time in his career, completely helpless.
Sukraraj transformed Sunday from an overloaded hospital into a nightmare of triage. Bastola arrived home from duty only to learn that six more patients were failing—six more for whom he could not find ventilators or ICU beds.