Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital has hands full with heat-related ailments, deaths

NEW DELHI

Sanjay Babu, a 45-year-old worker at a perfume manufacturing factory in Mayapuri who is suspected to have died of heat-related issues, was living in a cramped room that included a kitchen but had only one fan and worked at a factory amid high temperatures due to use of large burners in the process, his family said.

He came from Hathras in Uttar Pradesh over a decade ago and was earning ₹12,000 per month, which he used to support his wife and four children.

Babu is among 40 people who are suspected to have died of the ongoing heatwave and were either brought to or declared dead at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital. Doctors at the hospital said that their post-mortem examinations were conducted on Thursday to ascertain the cause of death but before their deaths, body temperature of most deceased had shot up over 105 degrees Celsius, which pointed to heat-related death.

Among those who are suspected to have died due to the heatwave were factory workers and an auto-rickshaw driver who worked for hours on end in the scorching heat to earn a living.

Babu, his family and colleagues said, would work for eight to nine hours at the factory. “We are exposed to extreme heat inside the factory because such is the nature of perfume manufacturing. Staying in such condition for eight-nine hours is not easy, especially for older people,” said Karambir Singh, Babu’s colleague.

Babu’s son-in-law, who did not wish to be named, said: “His residence in the slum cluster was a single 10X10 room with a fan in it. He couldn’t afford a cooler, forget an air conditioner.”

His family said Babu collapsed during a bath at a public washroom on Tuesday night and was brought to the hospital by police. “Doctors told us that his body temperature was 110°C when he was brought to the hospital. He wasn’t able to breathe properly and his blood pressure was also not stable,” the son-in-law said.

Forty-six-year-old Jitendra Yadav, of Bihar, who worked at a plastic manufacturing factory in Tilak Vihar, west Delhi, also died under similar circumstances. His father Ram Pravesh Singh, 68, who had come to collect his body, said that Yadav was survived by his wife and two teenage sons.

Yadav’s colleagues said that the working conditions got very hot, especially amid rising temperatures. “On Tuesday, his temperature rose to 107°C and he returned home. We then took him to the hospital but he couldn’t recover. He died on Wednesday,” a 30-year-old colleague said on condition of anonymity.

Yadav had a single fan in his room and relied on neighbours for cold water, they said.

Another family which waited at the mortuary to collect the mortal remains was of Gulzar Khurana, a 62-year-old auto-rickshaw driver who worked in the sun for long hours. While waiting at an auto stand in Raghubir Nagar — where he also lived — he collapsed. “He had a cooler at home but the heat outside can kill anyone. We suspect that he collapsed because of the heat,” Khurana’s friend Jatin, 40, said.

A medical officer at the emergency unit of the hospital, who did not wish to be identified, said that they have been receiving about 15-20 patients suffering heat-related problems every day.

To give immediate relief to patients, the hospital has brought a dedicated refrigerator for ice and saline water. “After first response, we send heat stroke patients to medicine ward, which is dedicated for them, and if they are more serious, then they are sent to the Covid ward, which is otherwise lying empty,” the officer said.