Sidewalk sleepers: They have nowhere else to stay while a loved one is in the hospital
The sidewalk outside Delhi's public hospitals has become a de facto waiting room, but nobody built it. Families sleep on cardboard strips between ambulances and paan stalls, measuring out the hours until visiting hours restart. They've turned the curb into a lifeline, sharing chargers and watch schedules like campers who never chose the site.
I think the strangest part is how invisible this labor is. We count beds, but not the body aches from sleeping against a railing for a week. These relatives are running a backup ward of love and exhaustion, absorbing every gap in the system's design. I'd want to know if any hospital has ever tried assigning a cot to a family member, or if the policy simply assumes they'll vanish at night. The street becomes their only accommodation, and that says more about our priorities than any waiting-room brochure.