Deeply per­turbed over the ris­ing deaths of Sikhs, mi­nori­ties and the poor in Delhi, World Sikh News ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh makes a fer­vent ap­peal to Sikh Samar­i­tans and Sikh hu­man­i­tar­ian bod­ies to re­spond with­out de­lay to as­sist the Sikhs un­der stress and dis­tress due to ris­ing in­ci­dence of Covid19 in­fec­tions.  It is time to sink all dif­fer­ences and sep­a­rate ap­proaches and adopt a com­mon min­i­mum pro­gramme to save lives through pri­mary med­ical care,  pal­lia­tive care and coun­selling ser­vices to the fam­i­lies of the ail­ing and dead. 

SIKHS, OTHER MI­NORI­TIES AND THE POOR ARE ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE IN DELHI  as the health sys­tems show signs of col­lapse with the in­creas­ing in­ci­dence of Covid19 in­fec­tion.

The pub­lic sec­tor health arrange­ments, which have al­ways been want­ing in In­dia and the third world have not shown any ma­jor signs of change, de­spite the enor­mity of the pan­demic. The pri­vate sec­tor shows that be­neath the PPE cloaks, there are sharks wait­ing to pounce on vul­ner­a­ble pa­tients.

 Read also: Del­hi's mid­dle class Sikhs vul­ner­a­bil­ity to Covid19 in­fec­tion a deep con­cern

Pal­lia­tive care is not even be­ing talked about and coun­selling for fam­ily mem­bers of those who sud­denly die is to­tally miss­ing.

Gur­d­wara bod­ies, de­spite their huge po­ten­tial, are an­nounc­ing and em­bark­ing on pro­pos­als which will not serve the needs of the com­mu­nity. It is time to be­gin small. Mi­cro-steps are needed, not mega pro­jects.

Delhi Sikhs beckon you. Whether you are in Delhi, Pun­jab, In­dia or any­where in the world, please join hands and heads to net­work and save pre­cious lives.

In the next few weeks, the sit­u­a­tion will take a turn for the worse. The num­bers are go­ing to be mind-bog­gling.

 Read also: Wages of hubris: In­dia over­takes Italy as a Covid19 hotspot

When they were un­able to tackle or even ad­dress the is­sue of farmer sui­cides in the coun­try, the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and state gov­ern­ments started to fudge the data. They, in fact, stopped re­port­ing sui­cides, even of­fi­cially. This game has al­ready started with Covid19 deaths and num­bers of pos­i­tive pa­tients. The ICMR is be­ing forced to sup­press its sta­tis­tics, fore­casts and warn­ings.

All an­nounce­ments by gov­ern­ments, hereto­fore, have shown shal­low­ness of in­tent and ac­tion. They are sim­ply bam­boo­zled by the sit­u­a­tion and are tak­ing re­prieve in vi­o­lat­ing hu­man rights and elec­tion­eer­ing.

There is a dire need to ed­u­cate and re-ed­u­cate vul­ner­a­ble sec­tions of so­ci­ety. The ba­sic do’s and don’ts need to be re­peated. Stay home, un­less ab­solutely nec­es­sary needs to be shouted from rooftops.

 Read also: Ma­jor Covid-19 pub­lic health cri­sis looms over Delhi and In­dia in July

In­di­vid­ual good Samar­i­tans and Sikh hu­man­i­tar­ian, re­li­gious, so­cial and med­ical bod­ies need to im­me­di­ately step in be­fore it is too late.

Wher­ever we can get space -Gur­d­waras, ed­u­ca­tional cen­tres, dor­mi­to­ries -we need to set up pri­mary health care fa­cil­i­ties, quar­an­tine and iso­la­tion wards. Am­bu­lances have to be on call. Sadly, we need to pre­pare for hearse vans too. Oxy­gen cylin­ders, pulse oxime­ters and every­thing else need to be pro­vided. Doc­tors and para­medics need to be in­cor­po­rated to mar­shall med­ical re­sources and as­sis­tance. Priests and vol­un­teers can take up coun­selling.

Delhi Sikhs beckon you. Whether you are in Delhi, Pun­jab, In­dia or any­where in the world, please join hands and heads to net­work and save pre­cious lives.

Wher­ever we can get space -Gur­d­waras, ed­u­ca­tional cen­tres, dor­mi­to­ries -we need to set up pri­mary health care fa­cil­i­ties, quar­an­tine and iso­la­tion wards. Am­bu­lances have to be on call. Sadly, we need to pre­pare for hearse vans too. Oxy­gen cylin­ders, pulse oxime­ters and every­thing else need to be pro­vided. Doc­tors and para­medics need to be in­cor­po­rated to mar­shall med­ical re­sources and as­sis­tance. Priests and vol­un­teers can take up coun­selling.

Un­ques­tion­ably, Sikhs in gen­eral and Sikh hu­man­i­tar­ian bod­ies in par­tic­u­lar, those men­tioned and those not re­ferred to, have demon­strated ca­pa­bil­i­ties to ren­der hu­man­i­tar­ian food ser­vices across the world. It is time to take Sewa to the next level by start­ing health ser­vices like Guru Harkr­is­han Sahib.

Serve Sikhs. Serve hu­man­ity. Save the day. To­day.