Oxygen auto! Seetha Devi lost her mother to covid but saved 800 other lives during pandemic

India witnessed an acute shortage of medicinal oxygen during the second wave of COVID-19 and left many distraught while trying to save their loved ones. Good Samaritans took the responsibility to help out such people and this woman is an example of the same.

Seetha Devi, a Chennai resident, had taken her 65-year-old dialysis patient mother, Vijaya, to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital when she caught COVID-19. They were made to wait several hours outside the hospital due to the unavailability of vacant oxygen beds.

“We had to wait for over 12 hours to find an oxygen bed for my mother. We were transferring her from one ambulance to another because the oxygen levels in the vehicles were critically low. Finally, she succumbed to the virus,” Seetha said.

“My mother’s life could have been saved if she had been given oxygen immediately. I don’t want anybody else to go through what my mother did. This is why I planned to supply oxygen outside the hospital through an auto-rickshaw," Seetha said, speaking to Life Beyond Numbers.

She decided to do something about it and has saved over 800 lives thanks to her oxygen auto-rickshaw. She has provided the service for free.