Renuka Gupta dies of COVID-19 complications: The woman, who has been serving as a child welfare activist for the last two decades, has succumbed to COVID-19, on the morning of Tuesday (May 18) at Jaypee Hospital in Noida. She was 56. Gupta had been battling the virus since April 20 and was hospitalised two days later.
The activist is known for her work under several NGOs and welfare societies, was reportedly suffering from Black Fungus, which is a post-COVID-19 complication. Read more about Black fungus here.
According to a report by the Indian Express, she was shifted to three different hospitals in search of a stable oxygen supply. The Noida-based hospital authorities informed that Gupta required amphotericin and couldn't survive the complications. She had been on a ventilator for the past few weeks. "Had she received proper treatment on time and if we did not have to worry about oxygen, things could have been different,” said her husband, Indu Prakash Singh, also an activist who works for the homeless.
Gupta, who has a degree in social work, dedicated her life to various development issues, and for 40 years, she worked on issues related to gender, child rights, education and fair trade. She has written books on gender issues and also authored a booklet on HIV case studies in 1998. Before getting infected, she was working as the CEO of Pardada Pardadi Society, a Bulandshahr-based NGO working on rural development issues. “The organisation she was working for has been looking after 1,300 girls in rural west UP. For them, she was a mother figure. She would often tell me she is the biological mother of two children, but all those 1,300 girls were also her children. She had dedicated her life to helping children,” said her husband, who will now look after the couple's two children - son and daughter.
Feature Image Credit: The Indian Express
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