Lingering effects of COVID-19 taking financial, emotional toll on India's population

With COVID-19 cases raging across India in the spring, Neeraj Jaiswal was desperate with worry for his wife as her breathing became more shallow and he wrangled for a New Delhi hospital bed equipped with a crucial oxygen cylinder.

Five months after the devastating second wave that pushed India's health system to the brink, it still pains Jaiswal to think of that frantic time — even as his predominant worries now are his wife's recovery and the stack of medical bills piling up.

"No words, really," Jaiswal, 53, told CBC News, choking up at the memory.

"I was crying at home when I was alone," he said, his mind turning over the constant question: "What to do, how can I save her?"

His wife, Neelam, 49, was in an intensive care unit for nearly three months. She's home now, on the road to recovery, but she still spends nearly 23 hours a day hooked up to an oxygen machine beside her bed.

She's also prone to anxiety attacks after such a long stretch struggling to breathe.

The Jaiswals are among the more than 60 per cent of India's population that doesn't have health insurance, adding a financial burden onto the family's emotional one. The country provides public health care, but the system is chronically underfunded — and there's a growing dependence on private hospitals, with a large proportion of Indians forced to pay out of pocket, at one of the highest percentages in the world.