How COVID-19 became a 'boon' for a battered Indian hospital

Doctors walk towards the main building of the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital in Bhagalpur district in the eastern state of Bihar, India, November 12, 2021. Picture taken November 12, 2021. REUTERS/Krishna N. Das

BHAGALPUR, India (Reuters) - At the height of the first COVID-19 wave in India last year, the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital (JLNMCH) in the eastern district of Bhagalpur exemplified the sorry state of healthcare in most of the countryside.

Wards and ICUs were so swamped with patients and relatives that armed escorts went with doctors on their rounds, in case violence erupted. Doctors said when a second wave pummelled India this year, the government hospital with some 800 beds and meant to serve millions of people, barely pulled through.