Health issues in India
A sharp and worrying rise in pollution rates is being felt especially in the north of India, whose metros dominate the list of India’s most polluted cities. Bihar capital Patna tops the list. Kanpur and Varanasi – both in Uttar Pradesh – follow in second and third place respectively. Delhi places fourth in the rankings, […]
Public hospitals in the national capital are struggling with a frightening shortage of ventilators. Health Issues India recently highlighted the story of Farhan, a three-year-old boy suffering from a rare disorder called Leigh syndrome. The hospital treating him lacked a spare ventilator. This forced the boy’s family to manually ventilate him, by pumping air into […]
Just days after its launch, the Delhi government’s ‘ambulances on bikes’ initiative has hit a legal roadblock following a suit filed in the Delhi High Court. Seventy percent of the staff manning the bikes – known as ‘first responder vehicles’ (FRVs) – are not trained paramedics, claims the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by petitioner […]
The Union Health Ministry is scrambling and struggling to help states contain outbreaks of swine flu, as a spike in cases nationwide is causing panic. India’s flu season typically brings with it cases of swine flu infection. This has proved to be a cause for concern in years past. Notably, a 2015 outbreak of the […]
The Delhi government has come up with a novel response to India’s ambulance shortages: bicycles. A new initiative will see cyclists ferrying patients through congested areas and narrow lanes on specially outfitted bikes. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Health Minister Satyendra Jain launched the initiative at the Delhi Secretariat, with a fleet of sixteen […]
Swine flu has killed seventeen people in Uttarakhand state capital Dehradun, out of 81 cases reported. At least, that’s if you ask the health department. There are questions being raised over these figures. The Sant Mahant Indiresh Hospital (SMIH) alone witnessed fifteen deaths and 81 cases between January 1st and February 4th. The disparity between […]
In Delhi, a boy is alive and breathing only because his family is pumping air into his lungs. Three-year-old Farhan is on a manual ventilator for a week as he battles for his life at Lok Nayak Hospital. Farhan suffers from a rare neurological disorder called Leigh syndrome. However, the hospital lacks a spare ventilator, […]
The Centre is under pressure to ban drugs that are still being sold in India despite being flagged a decade ago as being potentially unsafe. The Delhi High Court has given the Centre until January 4th to respond to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Dinesh Thakur in October. Thakur is a public health […]
Kolkata may be India’s ‘City of Joy’, but pollution meant residents had little cause for happiness this November. Coverage surrounding India’s air pollution crisis often centres on Delhi. However, the national capital was not the most polluted city this month. This distinction fell to Kolkata, which recorded Air Quality Index (AQI) readings worse than those […]
Last December, an infectious disease hospital in Delhi exhausted its supply of medication for diphtheria. In the months that followed, it failed to replenish it. Multiple deaths ensued. Diphtheria is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Symptoms – onset of which typically occur two to seven days after infection – include fever, […]
