Mumbai: 20% drop in TB, heart, asthma and lung cancer deaths

Mumbai: The number of people dying due to Tuberculosis, heart, asthma, lung cancer and other diseases at the civic-run Rajawadi Hospital dropped by 20% last year compared to 2021.

The data showed that the hospital recorded 215 deaths last year compared to 268 deaths in 2021, while numbers below 200 in 2020 (pandemic period), revealed data provided through a Right To Information plea filed by Faiyaz Alam Shaikh of Govandi. Moreover, death due to heart-related illness is a major concern as there has been a 30.68% rise during the same period. Senior officials said the numbers might have dropped but all these deaths are accompanied with comorbidities and most of them are elderly.

Post-pandemic heart illnesses up

However, post-pandemic heart illnesses have increased considerably. Dean Rajawadi Hospital Dr Vidya said the hospital gets patients from across Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). “We have 70% of patients from Mumbai, while the remaining are from outside the city due to which the deaths are added to city data,” she said. Meanwhile, the data also revealed that there has been no death due to lung cancer since 2020.Shaikh said Govandi M East ward is a densely populated slum belt with more than 250 pockets.

One BMC-run Shatabdi Hospital is near; however, it lacks facilities.“Recently in one of our past RTI information, we confirmed that 9 out of 100 death causes due to Asthma in the M-East ward. The main reason for respiratory illness is the sole biomedical waste incinerator, which is situated in the middle of shanties with lots of studies research by the Tata Institute of social science (TISS) and Bombay IIT,” he said. However, health experts have said patients will die if they conduct treatment at the Rajawadi Hospital citing several reasons such as no proper medical facilities despite being the only peripheral hospital which gets patients from Chembur, Ghatkopar, Govandi, Mankhurd and slums areas.

Diseases      2020   2021   2022

TB                42     58       14

Asthma        08      11       11

Lung Cancer  01      00       00

Heart            57      88       115

Other            87       111       75

total            195      268     215