Simone de Beauvoir once famously said, “One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion”. Eighty-five-year-old Narayan Dabhadkar actually proved Beauvoir to be true—his compassion for a COVID-19 infected young man's life led him to sacrifice a hospital bed at a time when his own condition was critical. Dabhadkar died one-and-a-half days after discharge.
Concerned over the speculations and discussions over the matter on social media, Dabhadkar's daughter Asawari Kothiwan clarified the matter over a video that circulated on WhatsApp: "Please know that at present our entire family is struggling with COVID. My father was in a very dire situation because symptoms in him were very severe and that is why we were struggling to find a bed for admitting him. After being on the lookout the whole day on April 21, we finally found a bed in the evening around 5 pm at Indira Gandhi Hospital in Gandhinagar, Nagpur. I was with my in-laws who are bedridden, and husband who was suffering from high fever; at the time I could not be there with my father, hence I called for an ambulance and sent my father along with my sister and brother -in-law to be admitted at the hospital. He got admitted. Treatment had begun. His oxygen levels at the time had dropped to as low as 50-55 and hence, he was immediately put on oxygen. An X-ray showed that the infection was severe. In the meantime, as he was lying on the bed and the treatment was going on, he and the others, too, could hear people wailing loudly for the want of beds and oxygen cylinders. He could sense the chaos around. That is when he felt that it was pertinent from him to vacate the bed he was holding because he would anyway be dying of the infection, why not save a young man's life who would have years ahead of him to live. My brother and sister-in-law tried to convince him out of it, but he was insistent. He then spoke to me over phone, saying that at 85 he had already lived his life and should now let a youngster live. I simply didn't know what to tell him at the time. I tried convincing him that he may not be able to get the bed again and won't even survive. He simply asked for discharge and left against medical advice. He did not cite the reasons for giving up the bed to anyone, not even to the doctors, but just to me and the family. After that, he lived for one-and-a-half days before leaving for heavenly abode."
Dabhadkar was an RSS worker and the organisaton has also issued a statement that confirms what his daughter has said. According to a statement issued by the RSS, he was barely able to breathe when he was brought to the hospital where he secured a bed for himself. “At the time when he was yet to be shifted to the bed, he saw a woman wailing and requesting the authorities to admit her 40-year-old husband and provide him with oxygen. Her children were also crying. Dabhadkar told the medical staff that he was 85 and had lived his life and, if there are no beds available, the bed reserved for him should be given to the man whose family needs him,” the statement said. It further read, “Dabhadkar’s son-in-law and the doctors tried to explain to him that it was necessary to treat him, and that there was no guarantee that he would get another bed. Dabhadkar, however, called up his daughter and said he was returning home, which would be the right thing to do. Being her father’s daughter, she understood his feelings. Dabhadkar signed the consent letter and returned home, where he died after three days.”
When THE WEEK spoke to Sanjay Chilkar, the doctor-in-charge at the hospital, he said, "We gave him discharge against medical advice. He or the family did not inform us the reason for asking to be discharged mid-treatment, but anyway his condition was critical and we had told them that if it deteriorated further, he might need to be hospitalised in a bigger facility. That is all we know."
