Nabila Sadiq was a popular professor and was sought after by students of gender studies (FILE)
Nabila Sadiq, a professor at Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia university, tweeted an SOS on May 4 for an ICU bed. She did get one, but her lungs were too damaged by then. The 38-year-old died on Monday night.
Her Twitter timeline tragically records her last few days, her worry over the Covid situation and her desperation after being infected.
April 23: "Too many deaths of knowns for one day."
April 24: "Too young and known people dying due to lack of oxygen. Every day I wake up to a death news. Too much for the mental state. When will this end."
April 26: "Pray the health improves by tomorrow. Thankfully fever has reduced much. Just this throat."
May 1: "Pray for me and parents please. We sail through"
May 2: "At this rate no one will stay alive in Delhi atleast."
May 4: "Any ICU bed leads? For myself."
May 4: "Got it"
That was her last tweet.
She was turned away by three hospitals before she got a place in the fourth.
Her father Mohammad Sadiq, 86, now stares at two photographs on the wall - those of his wife Nuzhat and his daughter Nabila, who died within 10 days of each other. "I am a walking corpse," says the former Jamia professor. "When my wife died I thought I have my daughter. Now all I have are memories."
In hospital, Nabila was not told when her mother, also Covid positive, had died on May 7.
"We called every hospital in Delhi-NCR to get an oxygen bed. Her friends helped us get a bed at Fortis Hospital in Faridabad. However, her oxygen levels dropped to 32 per cent. After a CT scan, the doctor said her lungs were damaged," said Nabila's student Waqar, who was with the family throughout.
Nabila was a popular professor and was sought after by students of gender studies looking for mentors.
"It feels like we lost our mother. She helped so many people during the pandemic. We would talk to her and tell her that her parents were missing her, hoping she would feel better and recover. But on Saturday night she was put on a ventilator," Waqar said.
While the number of Covid cases have come down after a peak earlier this month, India on Wednesday reached a grim record of 4,529 deaths in a day - the highest so far.