NEW DELHI: Under the dim lights of the Delhi Metro subway near AIIMS, a cancer patient lies on a thin plastic sheet, wrapped in a worn-out blanket. She is undergoing a third cycle of chemotherapy and has recently had eye surgery. As she waits for her next appointment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the poorly maintained, damp and filthy subway has become her only place to rest during the biting Delhi winter.
Around her, several other patients and attendants lie on the grimy floor, with nowhere else to go. One man sips tea through a tube attached to his nose, unable to drink directly due to arthritis in his mouth. Others quietly ask passersby for blankets. The floor is filthy, the smell unbearable, yet patients remain helpless, too exhausted to protest. For many, the subway is not a choice but a compulsion.
Amrita, from Kasganj in Bihar, has not returned home for two months. She left her three-year-old daughter with her in-laws to bring her 14-year-old daughter to Delhi for treatment of an eye tumour. Showing her daughter’s bandaged face and complete hair loss, Amrita said, “This is her fourth chemotherapy. Doctors have said we may have to wait another 12 days for the final check-up. This is the first time I have left my little daughter alone, but this was more important.” Her daughter was supposed to appear for school examinations last November, but the family has been in Delhi since then.
Recounting their ordeal, Amrita said they were displaced repeatedly. “First, we stayed at Vishram Sadan after paying some amount. When our allowed period ended, we had to spend nights on the road.
The day before yesterday, we came to the subway but security officials shooed us away. Today, we have finally been brought to a newly built pagoda tent,” she said. While food is being provided, she added, access to washrooms remains the biggest concern.
The lack of basic facilities is a recurring complaint. Sona Ali, lying in the subway with her maternal aunt, said, “The authorities charge `10 per use. In this season, a person may need to go four times a day, which means `40 daily just for the washroom.” Food is another challenge. “I send my 10-year-old child to look for people distributing food so we can get at least three plates and save some for dinner,” she added.
Sixteen-year-old Swaliheen from Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, carefully layered blankets over her mother, who is undergoing cancer treatment. “We were sleeping on the road outside the hospital for the past two days. We came here only last night. The doctor will examine her the day after tomorrow. Only then can we leave, and we will have to return again next month. I pray no one has to live like this, but we are helpless,” she said.
Though the government, with an NGO, has moved patients into pagoda shelters and subways, overcrowding and poor sanitation persist, forcing families to battle illness amid cold, filth and despair.