The air quality in the city following the arrival of winter and the post-Diwali pollution has become extremely unhealthy and hospitals in the city are experiencing alarming numbers of patients with respiratory illnesses and asthma attacks. There is an overflow of patients in the emergency wards particularly in big government hospitals such as AIIMS, Safdarjung and LNJP who are finding it hard to breathe, thus making the doctors operate they cannot.
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The Air Quality Index (AQI) in various regions of Delhi has steadily been in the range of severe (exceeding 500) over the last one week, which is considered to be toxic even to healthy people. To asthmatic individuals, bronchitis, and other lung related problems, it has become life threatening. According to doctors, the admission of asthma has been almost doubled than that of the previous year. Severe coughing, wheezing as well as low oxygen levels are coming in patients including children and the elderly.
The former AIIMS director Dr. Randeep Guleria cautioned that the existing pollution levels are a slow killer to the people. The PM suspended in the air in Delhi has a small diameter, making it deep into the lungs that become inflamed and airways narrowed. The worst affected are the persons with preexisting respiratory diseases, he said. The asthma epidemic is now being called as one of the worst health disasters that that state of Delhi has experienced in decades.
The hospitals have established special respiratory wards and have been able to bring in more oxygen cylinders to address the increased number of patients. Even such individual hospitals as Max and Fortis are not able to fit everyone, however. It is now common to have long queues of patients outside emergency departments. Lack of beds has seen many patients being treated in corridors or waiting areas whereas doctors are working long shifts in order to treat the crisis.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that pharmacies in Delhi-NCR are short of inhalers, nebulizers and anti-allergy drugs as well. Patients have been reported to visit several pharmacies in order to get basic asthma medication. The government of Delhi has also released notices to encourage citizens to be indoors, wear N95 masks, not exercise outside or in the mornings.
One of the most vulnerable is children. The cases of a chronic coughing, irritation of the throat, and shortness of breath in school-going kids have been raised in Pediatricians around Delhi. At least a number of schools have already transitioned to online classes because of the deteriorating air conditions. The parents are very much concerned and most of them report that the health of their children is becoming worse every winter even after taking preventive measures.
Environmentalists mention burning of stubble in other states, car emissions, and building dust as the significant factors of the crisis. Although the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) have consistently ordered tough measures on the polluters, it has not been successfully executed. The same case happens every year- people pay with the the administrative inaction.
In the meantime, social media is awash with appalling photos of masked people on the inside, air purifiers that are turned on 24/7, and hospitals working to their limits. Some groups of citizens have requested the central and state governments to declare a state of emergency in matters of health and adopt radical measures to reduce emissions.
With Delhi coughing and choking, analysts believe that the emergency is no longer an inconvenience of the yearly nature, but has become an ongoing national calamity as far as the health of the people is concerned. This could further cause an overcrowding in hospitals and respiratory epidemics in the city still to come unless serious efforts to control the source of pollution are put in place.
