How Old Delhi’s Traffic Makes Life Difficult in Medical Emergency

45 minutes and 1.3 kilometres later, Raeesuddin died of a cardiac arrest in the rickshaw.

Rickshaws pass through the busy lanes of Shanjahanabad. 

(Photo Courtesy: Shahzaib Ali Naik/Altered by The Quint) 

It was well past sunset in Shahjahanabad, when 45-year-old Mohammed Raeesuddin complained of a stabbing chest pain to his family.

To get medical help, Raeesuddin and his brother Mohammed Nawabuddin decided to visit the nearby hospital. They exited the living room through one of two adjacent doors — located on the outer wall of their lane Gali Sawar Khan house — which opens into the middle of the street (the other door leads to the only bedroom of the house).

Raeesuddin led the way, walking briskly, through the five-feet wide street — an artery of Gali-Sawar-Khan — which is perpetually covered with a thick canopy of smog and wires. Nawabuddin followed.

Narrow lanes of Shahjahanabad.(Photo Courtesy: Shahzaib Ali Naik)

Sawar Khan opens into Gali Kucha Pandit — a typical Delhi-6 street filled with cigarette smoke, cigarette smoking men, dwarf doors, old trees and shops encroaching land on either side.

A rickshaw rushes by an empty road.(Photo Courtesy: Shahzaib Ali Naik)

Raeesuddin was still leading the way, but his pace had gone down considerably. The pair made its way through rickshaws, scores of people and wailing blind men asking for money. Six minutes later, they reached the mouth of the street at Lal-Kuan-Road, which connects Kucha-Pandit, its veins and dozens of similar streets to the rest of Shahjahanabad.

Raeesuddin called for a rickshaw, which both of them boarded in front of an unmissable bright yellow building on Lal-Quan road. He then directed the driver to take them to the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital, 2.7 kilometres away.

Gali Sakko Wali. (Photo Courtesy: Shahzaib Ali Naik)

45 minutes and 1.3 kilometres later, Raeesuddin, a father of two, died of a cardiac arrest in the same rickshaw.

“The traffic was severe, our rickshaw was stuck in traffic for more than 40 minutes.’’

Nawabuddin

Raeesuddin died at Kali Masjid near Turkman Gate, which is at a distance of less than one-and-a-half kilometres from the bright yellow building they had boarded the rickshaw from.

“From Kucha-Pandit you can reach the hospital in ten-minutes, but that day it took us almost an hour. The thought of calling an ambulance didn’t cross my mind once.”

Nawabuddin

Like most people living in Shahjahanabad, Raeesuddin and his family knew that despite living within a five-kilometre radius of the hospital, calling for an ambulance during daytime was a luxury they could ill afford.

(Photo Courtesy: Shahzaib Ali Naik)

Raeesuddin is survived by his wife and two sons — Abdul Munaf (5) and infant Mohammed Zariyan. Zariyan, who was 15 days old when Raeesuddin died, was named after three months of his father’s death. Mohammed Nafis, a social activist familiar with the case told me,

“Traffic is severe throughout the day. It is impossible for full-size ambulances to move freely before 10 pm.”

Men gossip next to a narrow lane. (Photo Courtesy: Shahzaib Naik)

Mukesh Kumar, an ambulance driver at the LNJP Hospital, corroborates. Mukesh, who has worked as an ambulance driver for the past 12 years, all across Delhi-NCR, says,

“Ferrying patients to the hospital from Old-Delhi and neighbouring places is a nightmare. Despite best efforts, we lose at least fifteen minutes in traffic, which can prove fatal in critical cases.’’

Owing to a dangerous mix of unauthorised construction, crowded roads and impossible traffic, the Walled-City, over the years, has internalised the practice of ferrying patients to hospitals in cycle-pedalled rickshaws.

“At least three people are needed to accompany one patient. One person looks after the patient while the other two walk in front of the rickshaw, making way,’’ says Gaurav Gupta, a local resident who has been running a shop at Lal-Kuan road since 1971.

Congestion on Lal Quan road. (Photo Courtesy: Shahzaib Ali Naik)

On 24 May, at 6.31 pm, I boarded a rickshaw from Kucha-Pundit, Lal Quan road for LNJP hospital. We took the same route that Raeesuddin’s rickshaw had taken that day. During the 2.7 km ride, our rickshaw faced five stoppages — at 6.37 for three minutes near Shahganj Ajmeri gate, at 6.45 near Rehan electrical Asif Ali road, at 6.53 near Turkmani Gate and also at 6.56 and 6.59 — due to traffic snarls. After driving for seven-minutes — on the wrong side of the road — from Turkmani Red Light on Minto road, we reached the hospital at 7.05 pm.

It took us 34 minutes to reach the hospital in May 2019. Raeesuddin had died in September 2016.

(The author is a student of journalism at Jamia Millia Islamia. All 'My Report' branded stories are submitted by citizen journalists to The Quint. Though The Quint inquires into the claims/allegations from all parties before publishing, the report and the views expressed above are the citizen journalist's own. The Quint neither endorses, nor is responsible for the same.)