New Delhi: Sarojani Das is drenched in sweat as she cleans the utensils in a kitchen in a house in Dwarka, in southwestern New Delhi. The kitchen has no window, but there’s a table fan for Das to go about her work. The kitchen sink, where Das is standing, is near a door. But that’s no solace: the heat still hangs heavy, almost claustrophobic in its intensity.
Das, 29, is a domestic worker. She has to head out of her house – come rain or sunshine – to support her family of eight.
“I start my day early around 8 am and finish by 8 pm,” she told The Wire inside one of the houses where she was working, on June 23. Her work is intense, and Das visits 5-6 houses every day to earn a meagre living.
With the recent heat waves sweeping across the national capital, Das has found herself falling sick often. This has made it difficult for her to work.
“I had a fever and cough a few days back, which I am assuming happened because I was out so often,” she said. After consulting a doctor and taking a couple of days off , Das was back at work. Das cannot afford to take any more days off, even if her health demands it.
“I still find myself breathless quite often. There are some homes that have taken precautions like installing fans or switching on the air conditioner in the hall, but the heat is too intense this time,” she said.
Sarojini Das works at a house in Delhi. A table fan does little to alleviate the intense heat. Photo: Nikita Jain
Delhi witnessed a few showers over the last three days, and they’ve come as a respite from the nearly 45-degree temperature ranges that the city has been witnessing for the past two weeks. On Monday, June 24, the maximum temperature dropped to 36 degrees Celsius, almost 10 degrees down from a few days before. However, the humidity is still draining. It continues to impact people, especially labourers and people working in the informal sector who have no other option but to work outside, making them more prone to health issues.
Hospitals in the national capital have seen a surge in the patients coming in with heat-related illnesses, and this reporter’s visits to some of them confirmed that. The decrease in temperature due to the rains have helped, but not entirely. And there’s a huge inequality in how the heat is impacting various sections of society: the poor, marginalised and homeless are bearing the brunt of its impacts, The Wire found.
Hospitals see influx in patients
At the end of May, the India Meteorological Department issued red alerts warning about the “very high likelihood” that many people would experience heat illness and heat stroke, and urging vulnerable individuals to take “extreme care”.
At Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, doctors were shocked to see the Out Patient Department and Intensive Care Units filled with patients who suffered from heat-related illnesses from June 1 to June 20. Every day brought at least 30-35 patients to the hospital due to such illnesses, doctors at the hospital said. Many were referred to the ICU.
While the number has come down due to the change in weather, doctors are still witnessing an influx in patients. From June 21 to June 24, the hospital witnessed around a dozen cases of patients coming in due to heat-related illnesses every day.
There is still a significant influx of patients seeking medical attention, said Dr Atul Kakar, chairperson, Department of Internal Medicine at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.
“At the outpatient department, medical facilities are reporting between 10-15 cases related to heat-induced ailments. These include conditions such as heat cramps and heat exhaustion,” Kakar said.
Dr Chand Wattal, chairman, Institute of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said that due to the intense heat, fevers due to typhoid, malaria, cholera and dysentery – caused by the consumption of contaminated water, a common concern during hot summers – too have spiked. Patients also reported viral infections – such as diarrhoea and respiratory infections – in this weather. The elderly population – especially COVID survivors – whose immunities are low are particularly bogged down with infections, the doctors added.
As per news reports, hospitals including Safdarjung witnessed a shocking rise in the number of heat-related deaths; at least 277 people in the city have died across several hospitals due to suspected heat-related illnesses as of June 25. The Indian Express quoted official sources as saying that between March 1 and June 18, the national capital alone witnessed 40,000 cases of suspected heat stroke. Heat-related illnesses or deaths are usually under-reported, so experts have raised concerns that these numbers could well be far higher.
Considering this alarming situation in Delhi, the Delhi government held an emergency meeting and asked hospitals on June 20 to set up special heat wave units and scale up the number of beds to deal with the sudden spike in patients being admitted with symptoms of heat-related incidents.
Most of the patients coming to the hospital with suspected heat-related illnesses were labourers, whose work exposed them to extreme heat, Kakar said.
Unequal heat
The heat is at its peak at 1:30 pm on June 24, and Bhagirath Kumar pulls a cart filled with garbage that he has collected from Palam and Dwarka in Delhi. Dripping with sweat, Kumar, 30, stops to breathe. The last few days, though, have brought him a little respite because he is able to step out for work again.
“The heat was so bad before this that we were not able to step outside to collect garbage and had to stay in our rooms,” he told The Wire.
Kumar is a daily-wage labourer and pulls his cart across different corners of Delhi to collect garbage, clocking an average of 10-12 km every day. Hailing from Bihar’s Patna, he came to the national capital a few months back along with his children to earn a living.
“I go to houses to collect garbage. My owner pays me daily according to what I collect. Rest, I sell empty bottles or anything to the junk shop nearby,” he said.
A father of four, Kumar lost a week’s worth of income due to not being able to work when the heat wave struck. “I took extra money from the owner so that we could get by,” he said.
Kumar, who belongs to the Dalit community, said that while heat has never been an issue for him, this year it was unbearable.
An e-rickshaw driver in Delhi. Photo: Nikita Jain
This year’s heatwave has thrown inequality in society into sharp contrast. People belonging to marginalised communities who work in the informal sector – like Kumar – have been particularly badly hit. The informal sector represents a huge chunk of the Indian labour force and is forced to work every day through all kinds of circumstances, including sweltering summers. However, caste has rarely been recognised as a factor that contributes to heat vulnerability. A recent study by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) revealed that occupational heat exposure exacerbates social inequalities.
The study suggested that very high summer temperatures and heat waves are no longer rare events today.
“Such events add risks in particular to working people, especially when these are topped by pre-existing occupational heat stress factors, such as the use of personal protective equipment, which can hinder the dissipation of body heat, exertion or other occupational hazards. As climate change is multiplying the number of hot days and their intensity, and adding to the period of summer, a greater variety of occupations are becoming potentially exposed to heat. Some jobs have become exposed as a result of the ‘non stop’ economy and the contemporary management of working time,” ETUI said in its study.
About 90% of the workforce in India is employed in the informal sector. A 2020 report by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights said that a major part of the workers in the informal sector belongs to the Dalit community, Scheduled Tribes and other “lower” caste groups.
Marginalised by society and heat
The unequal impacts of heat on vulnerable communities, which also include the homeless, is a major cause of concern. Delhi’s heat wave this season has claimed more than 275 lives; and like people in the informal sector, the homeless and destitute have also been badly affected. According to a report released by Centre for Holistic Development, an NGO based in Delhi, more than 200 homeless people have died in Delhi this summer due to the unrelenting heatwave. Between June 11 and 19 more than 190 people died due to the heat wave.
Speaking about the alarming number of homeless people who died due to the heatwave, Sunil Kumar Aledia of the CHD, a member of the National Forum for Homeless Housing Rights (NFHHR), told The Wire: “The homeless are one of the most vulnerable communities due to weather conditions. The impact of climate change is more on the vulnerable sections of the society.”
He further said that heat-related deaths have increased over the past couple of years. This year has been the worst. According to Aledia, 75 people died due to heat-related ailments in Delhi last year. This year, the number has risen to more than 200.
“This is an alarming number. We have to understand the seriousness of climate change and how it is impacting the vulnerable sections,” he said.
Aledia took his findings to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), and the rights body has responded by serving notice to the chief secretary, Government of Delhi, asking for a report on the matter within four weeks. “The contents [of Aledia’s complaint] are indeed shocking and if true, raise serious issue of violation of human rights,” the NHRC has said.
Data procured from the Zonal Integrated Police Network, Ministry of Home Affairs, and tabulated by Aledia shows that homeless people account for 80% of the unclaimed bodies of those who died due to heatwaves.
But no one is talking about these vulnerable groups. A study by the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research think tank found that “nearly all Heat Action Plans are poor at identifying and targeting vulnerable groups”.
For Durvesh Kumar, who drives an auto rickshaw in Delhi to earn his daily bread and butter, the situation is no better. Kumar works for 12 hours every day, starting early in the morning and ending late at night. The rain has brought no solace to him, says Kumar.
“I mean the amount of time we have to stay outside; I would not say that the rain has made things any better. It is still humid and hot. Even I know this whole impact is due to climate change,” he told The Wire.
With hospitals seeing a high footfall due to heat-related illness to the marginalized exposed to harsh weather conditions, much-needed conversations, as well as action plans and their effective implementation – with regards to coping with the heat, tackling climate change that is aggravating the heat, and implementing methods to reduce the heat (especially in urban areas where temperatures are often higher due to reasons including increased built-up area) – leave much more to be desired from both the union and state governments.
Nikita Jain is an independent journalist.
