HIV+ve dumped outside hospital in Delhi

By M H Ahssan

Painful shrieks ring out from under a white sheet in the Neurosurgery Emergency ward of LNJP Hospital .

It's a destitute woman crying out for help. HIV-positive , disoriented, and bearing a gaping wound infested with maggots, the 40-year-old woman was found on a street outside the hospital last Monday.

The case has again highlighted the plight of mentally unstable destitutes left on the capital's streets to fend for themselves.

When Newsindia visited the hospital on Saturday, the woman was lying on a bed with a sheet draped over her head. Records show she was earlier treated at the hospital's ENT department for a severe ear infection and then taken away by an NGO.

But this time, she was found dumped outside the hospital, disoriented and sick, with maggots digging into a severely infected wound behind her ear.

Sources said the woman had been put through neurological tests and will need regular dressing for her wounds till all the maggots are cleared. Till then, a question mark will hang over her nutrition. Since she is admitted to the emergency ward, there is no arrangement for meals, and her nutritional requirements are not being met as per her physical status, sources said. "She is surviving on intravenous fluids. The staff members have been buying food to feed her off and on," the source added.

LNJP medical superintendent Dr Richa Dewan denied any negligence in the treatment of the destitute woman.
"We found her outside our hospital on September 12. She was very sick. But we have admitted her and have managed to give her every possible treatment .

But till the maggots are cleared we cannot think of any other kind of intervention. After this problem is solved, we will start her on anti-retro viral treatment (for HIV) and look into her psychiatric needs. She is being kept in the emergency, as it a place where she can be looked after better," Dewan said.

On what the government proposes to do for the growing number of destitutes on the streets, minister for health and family welfare, Kiran Walia, said she was concerned. With no ready solution to offer, the minister said her department was planning to set up two halfway homes for the homeless who are in need of long-term care, and also a hospice for elderly destitutes.