Water falls from a pipe into a tanker at a government run water filling station in Chennai.
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg
India’s Worsening Drought Is Forcing Doctors to Buy Water for Surgery
Hospitals in its third-largest city are now almost completely dependent on a fleet of privately-owned tankers.
Along with other doctors in Indian cities facing unprecedented water shortages, T.N. Ravisankar in Chennai is praying for rain—and soon.
Treating patients will “depend on God’s mercy” if water supplies in India’s fourth-largest metropolis aren’t replenished shortly, said Ravisankar, the chairman of Sudar hospitals, a chain of four clinics with 150 beds. Piped water at his hospitals has already dried up, and even the more expensive water trucks he now relies on may be unavailable soon in the state of Tamil Nadu.