Politicians sold ventilator slots during COVID

I remember standing outside IGMH during those terrible days, watching families huddle together in the parking lot, their faces pale with exhaustion and fear. The air was thick with anxiety and the constant sound of ambulances. We all knew someone who was fighting for breath, someone who needed that machine to keep them alive. And in that chaos, politicians saw not human suffering but political opportunity. That family you mentioned – I know others like them too. They weren't isolated cases. When your loved one is gasping for air and the doctors say only a ventilator can save them, you'll do anything. You'll sign any paper, make any promise. The politicians knew this. They had lists of critical patients and they'd approach families with this devil's bargain: join our party, show your loyalty, and your mother, your father, your child gets a chance to live. What kind of choice is that? What kind of human being makes that offer? The worst part was the betrayal after they got what they wanted. That family signed, their relative got the ventilator, and then a few days later – when the political photo opportunity was over – the machine went to someone else more 'important.' They played with lives like they were trading cards. We had empty beds while people died in corridors. We had aid money from friendly countries specifically for more ventilators, but where did those machines go? Who profited while our people suffocated? This wasn't just corruption – this was something darker. This was using the moment of our greatest vulnerability to build political armies. They didn't see grieving daughters or terrified sons; they saw potential party members. They didn't see human beings worth saving; they saw transactions. In a country where we're supposed to care for each other as one family, where our faith teaches us to protect life above all, they turned our hospitals into political markets. Even now, years later, I look at certain politicians and wonder: do they remember the families they destroyed? Do they lie awake thinking about the people who might have lived if they hadn't treated ventilators like party favors? We need to remember this pain, this anger. Not for revenge, but to ensure no Maldivian family ever again has to choose between their political conscience and their loved one's life. Our people deserve better than to be bargaining chips in political games.