Power cuts deny drugs to kidney failure patient

Every time a power cut is on, heat, sweat and unease are the last things on Gautam Munshi’s mind. Neelam Pandey and Rhythma Kaul report.

Every time a power cut is on, heat, sweat and unease are the last things on Gautam Munshi’s mind.

HT Image

All that this Dwarka resident is worried about are costly medicines kept in his refrigerator – vital to the treatment of his son suffering from renal failure. Repeated power cuts have left little gas in his refrigerator and even lesser hope in him as to how long would he be able to continue his son’s treatment.

"For the past five days we have been enduring power cuts, lasting as long as 20 hours in a day. Even those with back-up are without power, as they are not able to recharge their inverters. We have been complaining repeatedly to the BSES but nothing has happened so far," said Munshi, who spends about Rs 10,000 per week on his 28-year-old son’s treatment.

Munshi had to throw away four vials of injection, costing Rs 4,000, on Monday as lack of refrigeration rendered them useless.

“My son needs dialysis at least thrice in a week and for that we have to store medicines at home. Such frequent power cuts would result in medicines getting spoilt,” said the retired engineer, whose refrigerator at his Mahavir Enclave house is stacked with several packets of injections and medicines.

But Munshi’s are not alone; each family in the locality has its own tale of woes to narrate about long outages.

Anuradha Sharma, 22, a final year MA Hindi student of Delhi University’s Jesus and Mary College, has her final exams on. When HT paid her a visit, she was wiping beads of sweat from her face with a towel and fanning herself with her notes.

The residents say because of overload, the transformers in the area often catch fire, the same reason that the BSES gave for the frequent outages in the area. In fact, they blamed it on the residents. “We had planned to install two additional transformers but due to the differences among local residents, BRPL has been unable to install the transformers,” said a BSES spokesperson.

East Delhi and south Delhi residents are also reeling under power cuts.