A wave of green surgical masks greets the eye as you arrive at Dr E Borges Road in Parel, a Mumbai neighbourhood that had little more than textile mills a few decades ago. The next thing you notice is the makeshift tents these masked faces are peeping out from. The flimsy masks are the only protection these cancer patients have from the dust and pollution of the busy road outside Tata Memorial Centre.
Coming from various parts of India, the patients and their families have no other place but the footpath to call home. The non-availability of beds at the hospital forces families to stay in the open for months and, in some cases, years.
Stories of land and houses mortgaged or sold are common among these families. Some of them don’t have a house to return to in their town or village. “We sold our land in Bihar… We’ve been living on the footpath for two years. We had to shut down our business of selling bhurji pav ,” says Manoj Kumar, 45, suffering from blood cancer.
A friend in need is Jeevan Jyot, an NGO that helps these families with cards for free meals and medicines. “The NGO tries to help us, but can’t take care of all the expenses. The bill for my son is ₹4 lakh and they helped me pay ₹3 lakh. I still have to arrange for the balance and I don’t know how,” says Mufizal, a resident of West Bengal and the father of a one-year-old blood cancer patient.
It often takes months for a patient to get a consultation at Tata Memorial Centre. However, a number of doctors, associated with NGOs, have come forward to help those languishing in the queue. They attend to patients outside their work hours and some even procure free medicines and help treat these patients on the footpath.