As the winter chill has got several people taking to bed with the flu, chest infection or cardiac problems, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) also has patients, who, despite being critically ill, have to sit out in the cold and risk their lives.
Critically-ill cancer patients from across the country are among the hundreds of people who are forced to take shelter outside the premises of the AIIMS in Delhi’s bone-chilling cold.
Ramesh Yadav, a 45-year-old man from Bihar, is a throat cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy sessions. However, he has been staying outside the AIIMS Metro station gate for the last two months. “I came here two months ago. Initially it was manageable but now my life has become a nightmare. But I can’t even go back,” Yadav said, with his feeble hands trembling as he took out a bunch of medical documents from a tattered plastic bag.
In fact, a large number of families from neighbouring as well as distant States like West Bengal have also been forced to make the open space outside the AIIMS Metro station, their temporary accommodation, owing to inadequate space in the night shelters and dharamsalas.
Another patient, Kundan lal from Moradabad said, “I thought I would stay here instead of going back all the way daily. But I think I should rather go back at least till the chemotherapy sessions start,” he said. According to the AIIMS, the premier hospital has provision for about 700 people at
dharamsalas and other shelters in and around the hospital. Recently, in collaboration with CRPF, the hospital has set up a temporary 40-bed night shelter outside its dental centre. AIIMS is also building a new 200-bed permanent night shelter that will be ready by 2015 with a grant of `29 crore from the Power Grid Corporation.On any given day, around 8,000 people visit the AIIMS OPD of which around 55 per cent are outstation patients.