Today, Delhi experienced its coldest
morning of the season with temperature
dropping bon-chillingly low to 2.7 degrees
Celsius. The cold is particularly
excruciating for the patients who don't
get beds inside hospitals and have been
virtually living on the pavements.
Like 12-year-old Chandan. He was
diagnosed five months ago with bone
marrow cancer. His father accompanied
him from their village in Bihar to Delhi.
Treatment at AIIMS is heavily subsidised.
But they have nowhere to live.
So now, in between appointments for
chemotherapy at the hospital, the family
sleeps on the pavement.
Chandan's father, Girish, originally tried to
rent a room nearby for Rs. 60 a day. But
without any income, that soon became
unaffordable.
Across the road from AIIMS, a shelter has
400 beds for out-of-town and needy
patients and it is full. But after the plight
of children like Chandan was highlighted,
the hospital has opened a new night
shelter which can accommodate 500
people. Many patients were moved into
this shelter home overnight.
Delhi Health Minister AK Walia had visited
the shelter yesterday and said it would be
started on priority. "I was moved by story
on your channel. We plan to take this
seriously," he had told NDTV.
The Delhi government has about 150
shelters for the homeless in the city, but
with around three lakh people on the
streets, that's far too less.
Last year too, NDTV reported how this
public toilet at AIIMS was used as a
shelter by homeless patients and their
relatives. The police had evicted them,
but the cold has forced them to come
back this year.
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