No respite from heat in Rajasthan,3 deaths confirmed in city

JAIPUR: Rajasthan continued to suffer a blistering heatwave for the 17th consecutive day on Tuesday, with Churu being the hottest place in the state where the mercury touched the 50.5 degrees Celsius mark.
In most places, the maximum temperature remained almost 5 degrees above the normal for the season. However, some relief is likely from Thursday, when rainfall is expected at Jaipur, Bikaner and Jodhpur division, the Met office said.
The health department confirmed three deaths caused by heatstroke in Jaipur on Tuesday, taking the official toll to four in the state so far.Two women from Delhi and Karnataka, both aged 63, and a 40-year-old man from Agra were undergoing treatment for heatstroke at Sawai Man Singh Hospital in Jaipur. The hospital administration said they were admitted in the ICU and despite all possible efforts, could not be saved.
Another person, a student appearing for a pharmacy test at a private college in Jaipur, also died.
Over 1,100 people have been rushed to emergency units of hospitals in Rajasthan for treating heatstroke in the last two days, official health department figures suggest. Despite such a large number of people being brought to emergency units in critical conditions, official figures for heatstroke deaths in the state remain just four, with three of them taking place on Tuesday at Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital in Jaipur.
Health department officials said they have death audit committees in hospitals to declare heatstroke deaths as per guidelines issued by the Govt of India. According to these guidelines, 63-year-old Shiela Devi from Delhi, 63-year-old Padma Devi from Karnataka, and 40-year-old Mohammad Mansoor Hussain from Agra died due to heatstroke at SMS Hospital on Tuesday. They were all undergoing treatment in the ICU, the hospital's administrative officials said.
On Tuesday, the state's hospitals reported 343 cases of heatstroke; on Monday, 813 persons had reached hospitals with heatstroke. So far, 3,965 persons have been diagnosed with heatstroke this summer. More than 25% of the heatstroke cases this summer have been reported in the past two days, the health department's figures show.
As the heatwave situation continued, health minister Gajendra Singh Khinvsar held a meeting with doctors at the health directorate on Tuesday. Khinvsar said various speculations were being made about deaths due to heatstroke, with different numbers reported by the media. He stated that authentic data on deaths due to heatstroke will be provided by the health department after a death audit as per the Government of India's protocol, officials said.
Additional chief secretary, health, Shubhra Singh said on Tuesday that dedicated heatstroke wards and reserved beds had been set up in medical institutions.