The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Spare a thought for these children

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 07, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Spare a thought for these children

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, SEPT. 6. Schoolboys Satish, Nagaraj and Muthukumar have big plans for Rose Day, which falls on September 22. Volunteers and non-governmental organisations working with children undergoing treatment for cancer will attend their programme.

Until late in the afternoon on any day, the paediatric haematology department at the Institute of Child Health turns noisy with children taking turns to play on the rickety wooden horses while parents wait for doctors' signatures and medicines. Children who have been taking treatment for several years now have learnt to read their status reports. They even `assist' the doctor by reading out their platelet and white blood cell count and update the doctor on their friends' conditions.

At the ICH every year 150 children are treated for various types of blood disorders. There are children who suffer from chronic or acute problems and require extensive blood transfusion. Some children like Satish find it in them to talk about dancing and singing even with needles stuck in them. He is looking forward to the presents he will get on Rose Day though his parents -- migrant labourers from Bangalore -- may not attend the celebrations.

The haematology department, started in 1987 with 60 cases, today handles 250 cases. The department spends around Rs. 25 lakh on drugs alone but senior doctors here admit that the money is not enough to help every child treated here. Bone marrow transplant is the best treatment option in many cases but it costs Rs. 8 to 10 lakhs. (The hospital set up a Cancer Children Fund in 1996, donations to which are exempt from income tax. A record of donors and medicines donated are maintained).

Most patients make arrangement to buy medicines outside but there are some who are too poor to afford the drugs. They are given a few days' dosage and are advised to buy the rest from a drug store. Though the institute is for children, adolescents who should be sent to Government General Hospital's cancer ward are also kept here, as they find it difficult to adjust to new surroundings and doctors.

M. Venkata Desikalu, additional professor of paediatric haematology at the institute says, "Most people do not know that cancer is treatable. We had a patient who suffered from Hodgkin's disease. (It is a malignant growth of cells in the lymph system). He is now a software engineer in the U.S."

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