2023

Mumbai: 255 per cent rise in heart ailments in 2021 when compared to previous year, states bike ambulance data

Entry type: Single project

Country/area: India

Publishing organisation: Mid-day.com

Organisation size: Big

Publication date: 2022-03-13

Language: English

Authors: Anagha Sawant

Biography:

Anagha Sawant is a Mumbai-based senior sub-editor with Mid-Day. She has more than six years of experience with print and digital media platforms. She has covered stories on public health, education, and social and development sectors. She reports on public health and general news across Mumbai and Maharashtra at Mid-day.

Project description:

Maharashtra government’s medical emergency bike ambulance service received nearly 561 calls for cardiac or heart-related cases in 2021, compared to just 158 and 141 cases in 2020 and 2019 respectively. The data shows that there was about a 255 per cent increase in cardiovascular cases in 2021 when compared to the previous year

Impact reached:

Heart ailment data of Maharashtra state from past three years revealed with the help of a different source

Techniques/technologies used:

Rather than filing an RTI and getting the information from the government office, I prefered to gather the information from the bike ambulance service used by the state government in India. This helped me to highlight the heart ailment data from different prespective.

Context about the project:

While there has been articles about doctors and health experts speaking about the increase of heart ailment patients during the pandemic period, the story helps to showcase the increase in number of cases with the help of data from a service which is genrally neglected when it comes to gathering the information from.

What can other journalists learn from this project?

Other source of data rather than just depending on government office/officials to collect the data from

Project links:

https://www.mid-day.com/mumbai/mumbai-news/article/mumbai-255-per-cent-rise-in-heart-ailments-in-2021-when-compared-to-previous-year-states-bike-ambulance-data-23218259