In COVID-hit India, a 26-year-old doctor decides who lives and who dies

Rohan Aggarwal, 26, a resident doctor treating patients suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), writes down notes during his 27-hour shift at Holy Family Hospital in New Delhi, India, May 1, 2021. "If a patient has a fever, and I know he's sick but he's not requiring oxygen, I can't admit him," said Aggarwal. "That's the criteria. People are dying on the streets without oxygen. So people who don't require oxygen, even if they are sick, we don't admit them usually," he added. "Another choice is I have an old male and I have a young guy. Both are requiring high-flow oxygen; I have only one bed in the ICU. And I can't be emotional at that time, that he is a father to someone. The young have to be saved." REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Rohan Aggarwal is 26 years old. He doesn't even complete his medical training until next year. And yet, at one of the best hospitals in India, he is the doctor who must decide who will live and who will die when patients come to him gasping for breath, their family members begging for mercy.

As India's healthcare system teeters on the verge of collapse during a brutal second wave of the novel coronavirus, Aggarwal makes those decisions during a 27-hour workday that includes a grim overnight shift in charge of the emergency room at his New Delhi hospital.