India's sick left out in the cold as New Delhi's top hospital struggles to cope.

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Patients awaiting treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Science are living in tents and on pavements for months at a time as the centre reels under the weight of demand.

Paients queue for space in a government tent outside the All India Institute of Medical Science – known simply as AIIMS – in New Delhi. Photograph: Amrit Dhillon
▼ The night-time cold in New Delhi is biting. As the temperature plunges, Alam Ansari’s twin daughters, born prematurely, have only their parents’ body heat to keep them warm while they huddle in a crowded tent on the road outside the capital’s top hospital.
They are not alone. Each day, about 8,000 people from across the country queue outside the outpatients department for treatment. Mainly from poorer backgrounds, they sleep in tents or on the ground.
Ansari is rocking one of his three-month-old daughters. Something is wrong with both girls’ eyes, but he doesn’t know what. The family travelled to the All IndiaInstitute of Medical Science – known simply as AIIMS – after doctors in Bihar told them they were unable to offer treatment.
The train from their remote village to India’s capital took two days. A construction worker, Ansari borrowed 40,000 rupees. “That’s down to 5,000 rupees after being here two months. Every day we’re sent here and there, from one doctor to another. I don’t know what to do when my money runs out but I have to get my daughters well,” he says.
Amid the turmoil, the girls have yet to be named.

Alam Ansari and his wife, Seema, with their infant twin daughters outside the main hospital in New Delhi. Photograph: Amrit Dhillon
AIIMS runs a shelter for patients from out of town, but it is packed. Ansari and his family are lucky to have found space in one of the temporary tents erected outside by the Delhi government at the start of winter to give sick patients a place to wait for appointments, test results, and treatment.
Inside, more than 100 people are wrapped in multi-coloured blankets in the gloom. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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