Doctors' team to visit DUSIB shelters twice a week

NEW DELHI: Different teams of four health staff, lead by a doctor, will visit all night shelters of Delhi from Monday, to check the basic health conditions of the people, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) said on Friday.

"We have planned to provide basic health facilities to the people staying in the night shelters," said Shurbir Singh, DUSIB CEO.

"This year, nearly 3,000 more people are coming to the shelters every day and our expectation is that the number will increase in the next few weeks," said Singh.

He added that in winter, various health complications are reported from the shelters.

"We plan to send teams of doctors after a discussion with Chief Minister and Health Minister and they have agreed to this initiative," Singh said.

DUSIB has plans to connect the night shelters with mohalla clinics so that the people get easy access to the medicine and healthcare.

"We have nearly 15-night shelters which are connected to the mohalla clinics but this number should increase as we are working on this," said the CEO.

Singh said that DUSIB has 251-night shelters, among which 83 are permanent buildings, 113 porta cabins and 55 temporary shelters. "We are also trying to provide hot water to some of the shelters so that people get more comfortable staying." Singh said. He added that for the winter the DUSIB has started providing morning tea and biscuits to the people. "We do not have our own arrangements of food but in some of the shelters the NGOs provide food too," he said.

The Delhi government recently received a lot of complaints from the homeless people of who stay near AIIMS hospital this consists of patients families too. The DUSIB has got permission to open the subway on Friday at the AIIMS which was closed.

"We are happy that the civic agencies have given us this space. We can accommodate nearly 350 people at this place and the work has already started," Singh said.

At present, 83 shelters have been equipped with geysers and many others are furnished with electricity and TV sets for the entertainment of the residents. "We have reserved 20 night shelters for women as well and installed CCTVs there for their safety," Singh said. They can accommodate close to 20,000 inmates, there are only about 10,000 homeless people who are using these shelters, another board member said, adding that there are about 40,000 homeless people in the Delhi-NCR, according to the latest census.

"However, the figure (of homeless) is very far from accurate because of the floating population which is constituted by those coming in from other states temporarily," he said.