Who is re­spon­si­ble for the death of Jar­nail Singh? Was it the un­known com­pli­ca­tions aris­ing out of vac­ci­na­tion that led to the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of his health? Did the AAP gov­ern­ment in Delhi, of which he was a pil­lar, did enough to save him? What role, if any, did AAP Sikh and other ac­tivists play? Did the Sikh lead­ers in Delhi do enough to save the stal­wart? World Sikh News Delhi colum­nist Gurmeet Singh im­par­tially looks into the ques­tions, to which there are no easy an­swers.

EVEN WHILE AC­CEPT­ING THE WILL OF GOD in true Sikh tra­di­tion, it is not wrong to lay blame at the doors of some­one who was ex­pected to do more and bet­ter than what was done. How­ever, there is no scope for abuse, fal­la­cious logic and dis­trust.

Young Sikh ac­tivists and Jar­nail Singh’s fam­ily mem­bers moved heaven and earth to get the best med­ical at­ten­tion but hit a wall. Their ef­forts were fo­cused, yet the en­vi­ron­ment and sit­u­a­tion made it im­pos­si­ble for them to get the best at­ten­tion, treat­ment and fol­low-up for Jar­nail Singh.

For­mer Aam Aadmi Party MLA in the Delhi As­sem­bly, jour­nal­ist-turned-politi­cian Jar­nail Singh, passed away on 14 May 2021, af­ter spend­ing two weeks in the eu­phemisti­cally called Ra­jiv Gandhi Su­per Spe­cial­ity Hos­pi­tal. 

The Ra­jiv Gandhi Su­per­spe­cial­ity Hos­pi­tal is a gov­ern­ment hos­pi­tal and that it­self says a lot.  This is the same hos­pi­tal where ac­tor and You Tu­ber Rahul Vohra died gasp­ing for breath and recorded the ap­a­thy of the hos­pi­tal staff for his fam­ily and the Delhi gov­ern­ment.  He died on 10-11 May 2021. Did any­thing change in the work­ing of the hos­pi­tal af­ter his death?  Had the Delhi gov­ern­ment and the Union gov­ern­ment swung into ac­tion, Jar­nail Singh -an oc­cu­pant of the same ward could have been saved. 

Rahul Vohra’s wife, even in the face of the death of her hus­band, sought “Jus­tice for every Rahul” in her In­sta­gram post, shared here.  The gasps of the ac­tor are shat­ter­ing.  

 Read also: JAR­NAIL SINGH (1973-2021) — The Man Who Threw A Shoe At In­jus­tice

Though the AAP party got him ad­mit­ted there, af­ter his lack of Oxy­gen tweet, they swung into some SOS ac­tion only when he was al­ready put on the ven­ti­la­tor, some 72 hours be­fore his demise.  

 

View this post on In­sta­gram

 

A post shared by Jy­oti Ti­wari (@ijy­oti­ti­wari)

Covid in­fec­tion com­bined with the co­mor­bid­ity of high Blood Sugar com­pli­cated mat­ters for him. He had taken the vac­cine on 18 April.

The irony is that Jar­nail Singh must have un­der­gone acute pain re­cu­per­at­ing in the hos­pi­tal named af­ter the car­nage-ac­cused for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia -Ra­jiv Gandhi, against whose com­plic­ity in the pogrom of Delhi 1984, he had been fight­ing. 

Ohh so sad, Jar­nail Singh was a per­son of ju­di­cious na­ture, Tatha­gat will give strenth to the fam­ily to bear this sad time https://​t.co/​FFYskcDXb1

— Ra­jen­dra Pal Gau­tam (@Ad­vRa­jen­dra­Pal) May 14, 2021

In the dy­ing stages, young so­cial ac­tivists and his fam­ily went scout­ing for ECMO, of which Delhi has less than a hand­ful. Con­sid­ered a life­saver, ECMO could not be arranged de­spite mov­ing from one hos­pi­tal to an­other de­spite of­fers to buy it. In a last-ditch ef­fort, the night be­fore he passed away, the Su­per Spe­cial­ity Hos­pi­tal in the pri­vate sec­tor -Medanta Hos­pi­tal was con­tacted, the se­nior doc­tors there said that as he was al­ready on a ven­ti­la­tor and his con­di­tion was not sta­ble, it would be dif­fi­cult to ad­mit him.  The next morn­ing, in the early am­brosial hours, he passed away into the im­mor­tal world.

In the dy­ing stages, young so­cial ac­tivists and his fam­ily went scout­ing for ECMO, of which Delhi has less than a hand­ful.

The rise of Covid19, es­pe­cially in the sec­ond phase has seen greater de­mand for ECMO.  What is it? Why and when does a pa­tient need it? Ex­tra­cor­po­real Mem­brane Oxy­gena­tion (ECMO) is used when ven­ti­la­tors don’t help. It is ef­fec­tively an ar­ti­fi­cial lung or heart. This is used when all other forms of heart and lung sup­port fail for crit­i­cal pa­tients. It works by tem­porar­ily draw­ing blood from the body to al­low ar­ti­fi­cial oxy­gena­tion of red blood cells and re­moval of car­bon diox­ide with a ma­chine. There are two types of ECMO, veno-ve­nous, which sup­ports lungs and veno-ar­te­r­ial, which sup­ports both lungs and heart. 

Was it the ab­sence of ECMO or was it the ab­sence of sup­port from both the Delhi Gov­ern­ment and the Cen­tre Gov­ern­ment which led to in­ad­e­quate treat­ment of the for­mer leg­is­la­tor?

As in life as in death, out­spo­ken Jar­nail Singh was not treated well by his party -the Aam Aadmi Party

As in life as in death, out­spo­ken Jar­nail Singh was not treated well by his party -the Aam Aadmi Party. While he was bat­tling for life, his com­pan­ions and fam­ily were sound­ing the Delhi gov­ern­ment lead­ers about his de­te­ri­o­rat­ing health, yet no spe­cial ef­forts were made to shift him to a bet­ter fa­cil­ity, which is gen­er­ally done at the drop of a hat for other lead­ers. 

The man who quit his leg­isla­tive post to go to Pun­jab to cre­ate a base for the AAP par­ty’s fight in that state in the pre­vi­ous par­lia­men­tary elec­tions and the man who was re­moved from the party for a mere tweet sharply ques­tioned the party on its im­ple­men­ta­tion of the three dis­puted farm laws. He brought to the fore that the Delhi gov­ern­ment had of­fi­cially im­ple­mented the three far laws via a no­ti­fi­ca­tion, but for pub­lic con­sump­tion were mak­ing a hue and cry n the floor of the Delhi As­sem­bly and in the up­per house of the In­dian par­lia­ment. 

Un­ques­tion­ably, the Sikh lead­ers in Delhi and even else­where could have done more than what they did. 

Could the Delhi gov­ern­ment have arranged an ECMO and bet­ter treat­ment for him? Cer­tainly. The ques­tion of the Delhi gov­ern­ment be­ing venge­ful or neg­li­gent will al­ways stick in Sikh minds.

Un­ques­tion­ably, the Sikh lead­ers in Delhi and even else­where could have done more than what they did. 

ਪਾਂਚ ਤਤ ਕੋ ਤਨੁ ਰਚਿਓ ਜਾਨਹੁ ਚਤੁਰ ਸੁਜਾਨ ॥ ਜਿਹ ਤੇ ਉਪਜਿਓ ਨਾਨਕਾ ਲੀਨ ਤਾਹਿ ਮੈ ਮਾਨੁ ॥

Deeply sad­dened to hear about the sad pass­ing away of jour­nal­ist & for­mer MLA Sar­dar Jar­nail Singh Ji.

A bold leader, he will be re­mem­berer for his sewa for vic­tims of 1984 mas­sacre of in­no­cent Sikhs. pic.twit­ter.com/​d0pj8EALt8

— Hard­eep Singh Puri (@Hard­eep­SPuri) May 14, 2021

The man­ner and ex­tent to which so­cial me­dia war­riors go into a tizzy when a stal­wart passes away -ques­tion­ing the fun­da­men­tal con­cept of Sewa in Sikhism, -re­sort­ing to abuse of lead­ers -big and small, -dis­trust­ing Sikh aid or­gan­i­sa­tions and ac­tivists is un­par­lia­men­tary, un­jus­ti­fi­able, un-Sikh-like and an in­hu­man ap­proach in these dif­fi­cult times. 

Dreams to build com­mu­nity hos­pi­tals should be nur­tured and im­ple­mented. Not be­ing able to build in­sti­tu­tions is the col­lec­tive fail­ure of the com­mu­nity.

Could the Delhi gov­ern­ment have arranged an ECMO and bet­ter treat­ment for him? Cer­tainly. The ques­tion of the Delhi gov­ern­ment be­ing venge­ful or neg­li­gent will al­ways stick in Sikh minds.

Our fight is against the gov­ern­ment and its in­abil­ity to treat peo­ple and pro­vide re­lief to the needy in times of dis­as­ter. Bring­ing the fight back into the Sikh fold, as if gov­ern­ments can be ab­solved of their crime is beg­ging the ques­tion. It is time to raise voices so that gov­ern­ments get their acts straight. 

 Read also: JAR­NAIL SINGH (1973-2021) — The Man Who Threw A Shoe At In­jus­tice

We are liv­ing in tough times. Death is a will of God, –‘Hukam‘ or ‘Bhana‘ as life and death are in the hands of the Almighty. There are rea­sons for death but the sad truth is one loses near and dear ones. 

Jar­nail Singh was blessed by Akal Pu­rakh to play his role. His loss is huge for his fam­ily, Sikhs and the jour­nal­is­tic fra­ter­nity. May he live in peace at the lo­tus-feet of the Almighty.