Tag: Respiratory Problems

respiratory Problems Due To Smog

8 Out Of 10 Kids Facing Respiratory Problems Due To Smog

By LokMarg

The poor air quality in the national capital and NCR region is affecting children badly and almost eight out of ten children in the hospital are coming up with respiratory problems, says an expert.

The air quality continues to remain very poor category with AQI recorded at 385 on Tuesday morning.
According to Dr. Anamika Dubey, Senior Consultant Pediatrics, Rainbow Children’s Hospital, “In this season, many children come to the OPD, I think 8 out of 10 patients are coming with complaints of cold, cough and increasingly breathing issues, cough increases more at night and distress. Moreover, small children are not able to express themselves they are not able to say that they are having a problem but it’s giving them a lot of problems.”

R Dubey said that pollution increases the number of poisonous gases and particulate matter they do affect the lungs of babies and children.

“Normally, the smaller children would start with flu-like symptoms, they will have a cold cough. And in some patients, it increases to a point where they are like they face difficulty in breathing. We have to actually admit them and put them on medicines and nebulizers. So, that they can breathe properly. These are all harmful gases, they do have an effect on the breathing of the child and the conditions of the lungs,” she said.

She further recommended wearing masks and washing hands frequently as a precaution.

“It is very difficult to tell children to wear a mask every day and keep a distance from the child who’s having a cold. We cannot say children that don’t go to school, otherwise most of the time they will be sitting at home.”

Dr. Dubey said that the only way to protect a child is to keep washing their hands with clean water.

“During air pollution, the problem increases for those children who are asthmatic or have bronchitis. The problem that many times increases for the child who is always been more allergic and they have a tendency to precipitate more severe bronchitis kind of situation. They do have more problems as compared to others,” Dr. Dubey added.

She said that mild patients are treated at home and moderate to severe patients in the hospital.

“We categorize the patients in terms of mild, moderate, and severe. So mild patients are treated at home and moderate to severe patients are in the hospital, and then put on medications. We don’t give them antibiotics. But we put them on anti-allergens, nebulizer, etc.,” she explained the treatment given to the children category-wise.

The air quality in Delhi continued to remain in the ‘very poor category on Tuesday morning as the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of the city stood at 385.

Noida, which is part of the national capital region, recorded an AQI of 444 and slipped from ‘very poor’ to the ‘severe’ category, while Gurugram’s AQI stood at 391 and continued to remain in the ‘very poor category, as per data released by SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research) India.

Air Quality Index from 0 to 100 is considered as good, while from 100 to 200 it is moderate, from 200 to 300 it is poor, and from 300 to 400 it is said to be very poor and from 400 to 500 or above it is considered as severe.

The air quality in Delhi’s satellite cities showed no improvement from the previous day. Gurgaon is predicted to slip into the ‘severe’ category from Wednesday, November 2. Noida’s air quality is also expected to dip further.

The city of Delhi too fared very poorly. Narela in North West Delhi reported the highest AQI at 571. North Delhi Air Quality is the poorest at the moment as almost all the stations have AQI above 400. Most of the stations in the capital have an AQI above 300 except a few like Mandir Marg in central Delhi.

According to data by SAFAR, Dhirpur in Model Town registered an AQI of 494. The AQI near IGI Airport (T3) also stood in the ‘very poor category on Tuesday with an AQI of 332.

Delhi slipped into ‘severe’ on the AQI meter on Saturday. With air pollution worsening in the national capital, Delhi authorities halted all construction work and demolition activities till further orders. (ANI)

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Toxic Air I

#Toxic Air I – ‘Dust, Pollution Part Of Life’

By LokMarg


paan-gutkha shops here in Deoghar (Jharkhand) on my way home in the evening.

My friends and I laugh wryly every time I see privileged people on television talking about how badly their countrymen are affected by air pollution. They sound like a joke. Do people sitting in those shining studios ever spare a thought about people like us? I am a construction worker and I too am forced to make peace with toxic air, even though my exposure to air pollution is much more prolonged than any of the experts or politicians sitting and making idle talk in television studios.

My day starts early in the morning as I start walking on dusty kaccha roads waiting for a ride to come by. If I am lucky, I get to hang on the sides of buses or sawari autos. On rare occasions, I am able to get a seat. But then the co-passengers cringe with disgust. Who would want a dirt-laden labourer sitting next to him/her? People talk about air pollution in Delhi and other big cities, but the truth is that it’s a national problem.

The air in villages and small towns is equally bad. Smog is probably not visible here but the amount of construction happening in this town is insane. A new building is being constructed after every 50 metres or so. Every time a lorry unloads bajri (red sand) or reta (sand), it is impossible to breath. My job is to lift soil, bricks, sand and small stones used for construction, for nearly eight to nine hours. I first have to dig the soil, or sieve the sand or arrange the bricks before I can start carrying the load.

In short, I am in close contact with dust particles throughout the day. My load can go up to as much as 40 kilograms at a time. Add to it, the pollutants from industries, coal plants, vehicles and stubble burning.  And I have more breathing issues than the grandparents in family!  Sometimes I have a lot of difficulty in breathing and it becomes worse during winters.

Breathing isn’t the only issue. Take a look at my hands. The skin has got dry and flaky; sand and other dust particles clog my skin pores and make my skin burn. My hands were not like this when I started to work at sites. My friends, who work as labourers in Delhi, sometimes get masks to cover their faces while working. They told me that being the capital city, many NGOs actively conduct regular health check-ups of construction workers, and distribute masks.

Sadly that is not the case in small towns. Here if you fall ill, you have to ignore it and keep working. Labourers, who work for hotel projects are slightly better off. At least they take care of the working conditions of the labourers. But things are bad, where I work. They use huge machinery. We are surrounded by big vehicles such as JCB machines, tube-well boring machines, and road rollers that keep plying at the construction site– the dust never settles.

I understand this is part and parcel of the vocation I have chosen for myself, but if the construction pace was a little slower, perhaps we could get a little space, where we could take little breaks to sit and relax. We do not even have masks to shield us from the pollution, my red gamcha is the only protection I have. To add to our woes, we mostly live in the poverty-ridden localities, where water shortage is often a problem. As a result we do not even get to clean ourselves properly after having been exposed dust and other pollutants.

Indiscriminate dumping of garbage is also a problem in our locality. We live in a haven for infections and the pollution makes us more prone to them. Cold, cough, running noses, burning eyes and headaches have become a part of my life. The situation is worse for female construction workers and older labourers. We earn around Rs 300-400 per day and we cannot afford to spend money on medication. We just pick ourselves up and march on. *(This is a fictitious name. The construction worker was just not interested in identifying himself despite frequent requests. All he wanted was his sufferings be known to others)