Sidewalk sleepers: They have nowhere else to stay while a loved one is in the hospital
Families traveling to Delhi for specialized medical treatment for their children are often forced to sleep on sidewalks due to a lack of affordable housing. This makeshift living arrangement highlights the severe strain on public health infrastructure and the economic hardships faced by rural families seeking care in urban centers.
Why it matters
It sheds light on the intersection of poverty and healthcare access in developing nations, where life-saving treatment often comes at the cost of basic human dignity.
DELHI, India — At 2 a.m. on the sidewalk outside one of Delhi's best-known public hospitals, Shabana Kumar gently wakes her husband. They sleep in shifts of about an hour at a time because their 6-year-old son is a patient in the oncology ward, being treated for leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. They are afraid that if they are both asleep, an urgent call could come about their son's condition and they might miss it.
The Kumar family lives more than 600 miles from Delhi in the state of Bihar. Arun, 32, works as a farmer. Shabana, 30, is a homemaker caring for their only son.
They made the trip to Delhi because they could not afford the cost of their child's cancer treatment in Bihar. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences, or AIIMS, subsidizes expenses for families in need.
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