Amid pollution spike in Delhi, Safdarjung hospital to study its OPD and emergency patient load

“We are aware that pollution every year has an impact on the number of cases and their severity. Safdarjung Hospital is monitoring whether AQI or air pollution has any direct impact on the number and quality of patients,” said Dr Gupta.

He added that data will be collected from the emergency and pulmonology departments and the correlation will be studied — how patient load is impacted on days when the pollution levels are low and when it is very high.

The air quality in the capital has been deteriorating over the last week. On Thursday, it was in the ‘severe’ category (AQI of 412 at 9 pm). The Commission for Air Quality Management has invoked Stage III of the Graded Response Action Plan. With this, a ban on construction and demolition activities will kick in across NCR, except for certain projects (railways, metro, healthcare facilities etc).

A recent study conducted at AIIMS had said exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), even for a short duration, between zero and seven days, leads to an increase in the number of emergency room visits by 53%. This is alarming because an increase in the levels of the more familiar pollutant PM 2.5 pushed up the patient load by 19.5% in comparison.

“The particles lead to swelling and irritation in the respiratory system and are associated more with wheezing and coughing,” says Dr SK Kabra, corresponding author of the paper.

Hospitals across the city, meanwhile, said they are seeing many patients, including those with

chronic conditions, coming in with lung-related issues., Bronchitis and Asthma and a surge in the patients coming to the hospitals. Doctors say it can be attributed to rising pollution levels and dipping temperatures.

At Safdarjung Hospital, there has been a 20% increase in OPD patient load. Dr Gupta said patients started developing issues in the last week and many are experiencing dry cough and burning sensation in the eyes and throat as well as difficulty in breathing.

According to Dr Anant Mohan, Head of the Department of Pulmonology at AIIMS, there has been a 10-15% increase in the number of patients with worsening symptoms over what is normally the case. “Most of them are chronic patients with lung issues and require tweaking of medications, increasing the doses or more medication. Some of them require hospitalisation as well. In the OPD, we tell them what they should do in the coming weeks to prevent this from worsening or happening again,” said Dr Mohan.
At Delhi government’s Lok Nayak Hospital, patients have complained of headaches and irritation in the eyes. Dr Ritu Saxena, Deputy Medical Superintendent, said this is due to pollution. “The numbers have not increased significantly but there is a slight increase. We will know more in the coming weeks,” she added.

Dr Rajesh Chawla, senior consultant, pulmonology and critical care, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, said some of his regular patients suffering from chronic bronchitis, asthma and COPD are in bad shape and their day-to-day life is badly affected.

“One of my asthma patients went to her hometown for a month where her condition improved drastically and her symptoms disappeared. But when she came back, her symptoms returned,” said Dr Chawla.

He said that the medication that is being provided to the patients is taking a longer duration to work.