Outside AIIMS, patients brave winter nights for treatment

NCERTAIN APPOINTMENTS

- ANAMTA FATIMA

Delhi witnessed its coldest day of the season as temperatures fell to 4.2°C, while air quality remained in the “severe” category, making even routine outdoor activity hazardous. Amid this environmental crisis, a stark and unsettling reality has emerged outside the All India Institute ‘of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), one of India’s most reputed government hospitals a growing population of patients and attendants living on pavements, footpaths and roadsides as they wait for medical care.

Wrapped in thin blankets and lying on frozen concrete, patients from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and other States have turned public spaces into temporary shelters. Many say they were compelled to travel to Delhi after exhausting options in their home districts, drawn by AIIMS’ reputation for special-ised treatment at low cost.

For them, the struggle does not begin inside hospital wards but at the gates.