Most patients were men over 40 years: Delhi hospitals on heatstroke deaths

The hospitals and the state health department are now looking into the post-mortem reports of the patients, including those who were destitute, to know if they had any comorbidities, which could have contributed to the deaths.

“Those who were brought dead to the hospital were also mostly above 40 years of age and were males. Many were elderly citizens and had comorbid conditions as well,” said a doctor from Safdarjung Hospital, where, on June 19, three patients were declared dead within an hour of treatment and four were brought dead.

The doctor said an audit will be conducted to analyse the deaths due to heatstroke and study the comorbidities associated with the patients who died. “A senior doctor had also met the Director General Of Health Services (DGHS) Atul Goel on Friday to form an internal committee of the hospital, which will analyse all the deaths,” he said.

A similar probe will also be conducted by the state health department on destitute and unidentified bodies that reached the hospital mortuaries in the last four days.
“There have been several unidentified bodies, which include those of the destitute, drug addicts, and alcoholics who died due to heatstroke. However, it needs to be probed as to what was the exact cause of death,” said an official from the state health department.

The Centre-run Safdarjung Hospital alone has seen 29 deaths and 90 heat stroke cases reported since March. Most patients — 68 — came after June 16. “Currently, there are 28 patients with heat stroke admitted in the hospital with 15 critically ill and intubated. On Saturday, there were two new admissions and one death,” said an official from the hospital.

Central government-run RML hospital, which has a dedicated heat stroke unit, did not respond to the queries.

At Lok Nayak Hospital, four patients remained on ventilators due to heatstroke after being admitted three days ago.

Medical Director Dr Suresh Kumar said eight deaths have been recorded in the hospital due to heatstroke. “Most of them were above 40,” he said. He further said most of them came from underprivileged backgrounds, working as car mechanics, rickshaw pullers or ragpickers.

Meanwhile, from June 18 to June 21, Delhi government hospitals reported 43 deaths of patients of heatstroke who died during treatment. Currently, 100 patients are under treatment and a total of 285 patients reported with heat-related illnesses at the state-government run hospitals.