Updated: November 21, 2020 9:33:12 am
Laxmi Gangadhar Parate, 60, is a familiar face at BYL Nair Hospital. (Express photo of Tabassum Barnagarwala)
FROM EARLY last month, when he visited Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital (LTMG) to treat a leg injury, Shakti Kumar made a bench in the facility his home. Vishal Pawar and his mother have been living in a nearby shed for the past three months. Vijay Boite and her daughter stayed under a tree at KEM Hospital for three weeks.
Meet the new homeless of Mumbai. They lost their livelihoods during the Covid lockdown and now seek refuge in city hospitals, arrive for treatment, and then quietly claim corners in hallways and waiting areas, holding on to survive, with nowhere else to go.
This is how the green bank became his home, says Kumar. “I have never been homeless before. I used to work and stay in a restaurant in Virar, making 15,000 rupees a month, sending most of it to my family in UP. Covid forced the restaurant owner to close in March, leaving me and five other employees jobless and homeless, ”he says.
“I had an accident and I was hospitalized here for a week.
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When they released me, I had nowhere to go, “he says. Kumar bathes in a public toilet, eats food provided by NGOs or food scraps from the hospital. “Every day I go out to look for work. I’m ready to cook for 3,000 rupees, ”he says.
Pawar was a security guard who stayed in a poor neighborhood in Kurla and worked as a part-time aide at LTMG. “When the confinement started, I lost both jobs. The owner asked us to leave and we have been living in this shed ever since. My mother visits the ward every afternoon where a nurse gives her her leftover food, ”she says.
“These are people who were just above the poverty line before the shutdown started, and now they have been pushed down,” says Mohammed Tarique of the Koshish NGO that works for the homeless.
The 2011 census pegged the number of homeless people in Mumbai at just 57,415. Before the pandemic hit, a report commissioned by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation this year returned an estimate of 11,915. “But according to us, Mumbai has at least 2 lakh of homeless people. This count may have increased even more during the confinement, ”says Brijesh Arya, from the NGO Colectivo sin Hogar.
Shyam Tagade, senior secretary for the Department of Welfare and Social Justice, says there are no official records of people who were made homeless during the pandemic. “The police are responsible for bringing the homeless and homeless to our institutions. But since the police have dealt with the pandemic arrangements, they have not been able to do this, ”says Shobha Shelar, Deputy Women and Child Development Officer, Mumbai, adding that the number of homeless“ may have increased “in recent times. months.
“The BMC will ask if the homeless are taking refuge in one of the hospitals run by the civic body. If they need treatment, we will hospitalize them, if they are homeless, we will get help from the police and refer them to shelters, ”says Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner.
At LTMG, Dr. Mohan Joshi, dean, says he has “not noticed” such cases. But staff point out that the facility is close to Dharavi and Chembur, which are centers for migrant workers. “The number of unemployed and homeless men in the hospital waiting room, hallways and benches has increased. When there is excess food left in the neighborhoods, I distribute it among them, ”says Mohammed Shaikh, a boy from the neighborhood. “We keep turning them away, but they come back,” says Sunil Patil, a security guard.
At BYL Nair Hospital, Laxmi Gangadhar Parate is a familiar face. The 60-year-old was an unofficial caregiver, charging “200-300 rupees a day to change diapers and help carry patients to the bathroom.” “Since March, the hospital has detained people like us. Now I am here to ask anyone who comes to give me a job or take me to a foster home, ”he says.
At KEM Hospital, Dean Dr. Hemant Deshmukh says there have been “cases where some homeless people tried to apply for admission when their illness did not warrant hospitalization.”
Boite, who lived under a tree in the hospital with his daughter, is one of them. “I have been out of a regular job for seven months and had to give up our rented house. My wife left me, leaving my two daughters in my charge. I dropped off one daughter at a friend’s house and took the other to the hospital. We stayed under a peepal tree. I thought that if they admitted me, my daughter could sleep on the floor, ”she says.
Every day, Boite tried to be admitted for “weakness and back pain,” says a hospital doctor. Finally, the hospital admitted him for six days, administered saline, and discharged him. Boite moved back under the tree with his daughter before the guards asked them to leave. Today, the 40-year-old lives on the street in front of his old house in Ulhasnagar with his daughters who have dropped out of school. Still out of work.
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