Monkeying with medical tourism in India

As New Delhi has expanded, monkeys have lost their habitat and invaded urban areas of the city. The influx has perplexed the city government, but after the death of the deputy mayor, who fell while trying to scare some monkeys off his balcony, the issue has taken on new urgency.I was a bit shocked by the following paragraphs in the New York Times (Monkeys in the Parks, Monkeys in the Palace) describing the extent of the problem:

The lawyer charged by the High Court with ensuring the monkeys’ removal said recently that things were as bad as ever, even in some leading hospitals. “They attack patients who are being rolled inside the hospital, pull out IV tubes and scamper off to drink the fluids,” the lawyer, Meera Bhatia, told Indian journalists.“We have a serious problem because of our religious ways,” Ms. Mehra said. “People feed them liberally. But they do attack. In the past three years, there have been 2,000 cases of monkey bite in Delhi.”

Ouch!