Dr Jagadish Rai – A Hero who stood between us and the virus

 

 

My friend’s father, Dr. Jagadish Rai, a 70-year old obstetrician and general practitioner passed away recently.

 

Despite an underlying leukemia, and obviously not officially assigned to Covid duty due to his age and medical condition, he saw patients through the lockdown, many of whom were Covid positive.

 

Given his keenness to help his patients, he followed several safety measures – restricted social contact, even isolated himself at home, apart from taking the necessary regular precautions.

 

Unfortunately, he contracted Covid from a 28-year old patient (who came to him coughing blood, and who passed away within a day of testing positive). And despite contracting Covid and being hospitalized, in the days leading up to Dr. Rai’s death, he continued attending to patients on call until he got too breathless to be able to.

 

For an unknown virus that has kept even far younger and healthier doctors away from the risk if they had that choice, Dr. Rai is from a rare breed of bravehearts whose sense of purpose and duty was far bigger than the virus, bigger than our collective fears, and bigger than our collective carelessness.

 

So the next time any of you are stupid enough to think it’s okay to step outside without a mask, or remove the mask while in public, whether for a picture or to talk; think of Dr. Rai.

 

Selfless people like him sacrificed their lives to save us from health issues and the virus; not so that we could be stupid enough to knowingly run toward the virus despite such a great sacrifice.

 

Read about him here.