Why doctors are struggling to certify heat deaths even in this brutal summer
Despite new government guidelines, medical staff are reluctant to pin heat as cause of death due to lack of awareness and limited access to forensic facilities.
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On June 1, government teacher Wasi Akhtar, 48, walked to the Baluadih Urdu medium government school in Bihar’s Jamui and logged his attendance before 9 am.
A day before, the maximum temperature had soared to 44 degrees in Jamui. The India Meteorological Department had sounded a heat-wave alert for parts of Bihar since May 29, warning of hot nights which gives no time for the body to cool down. Schools had been shut because of the heat wave. But teachers were still asked to report for duty.
“After a while, Akhtar went to inform the headmaster that he was not feeling well,” his elder brother Mohammed Shamim said. “He collapsed there.”
Shamim rushed to the school and saw that other teachers were spraying water on Akhtar to revive him. “His body was very hot when I touched it,” he said.
Akhtar was rushed to a local doctor who said he could not treat a case of heatstroke.
A second private doctor, Dr Tasneem Ahmed, put him on intravenous saline drip for some time and then asked the family to take him to a bigger hospital. Akhtar’s blood pressure was high but the ECG report was normal, the doctor observed.
The family then travelled to Durgapur, over 80 km and two hours away,...
