The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Survivors campaign against suicide

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 13, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Survivors campaign against suicide

By M. Dinesh Varma

CHENNAI, SEPT. 12. For the past eight months, the 27-year-old youth has not been able to eat anything because of damage to the food pipe. Worse than the discomfort of nasal feeding that doctors have put him on is the gnawing anxiety over whether he will ever be a successful breadwinner.

A 21-year-old boy from Chromepet cannot do anything on his own. His speech is unintelligible and it hurts even when he tries to swallow.

In the case of the 15-year-old girl from Saidapet, her mother had to quit her job to become a care provider.

All these patients had tried to end their lives by consuming acid and are now full of remorse for the trauma they caused for themselves and their families. When they addressed a small gathering at the Government Royapettah Hospital on Saturday these victims turned effective campaigners for suicide prevention.

These survivors were recounting their stories (through parent or sister who spoke for them) at a special programme organised at the hospital on the concluding day of the Suicide Prevention Week observance.

Every year, between 180 and 300 persons consume acid lotions on suicidal impulse and end up in the GRH in a very sick state. The majority are in the 13 to 30 age group and hail from the lower socio-economic strata. What is equally worrying for surgical gastroenterologists at the hospital is that the victims include a substantial number of young women.

Doctors say that those who drink `weak acids' do not die but have to undergo trauma for long periods in hospital before they are subjected to reconstructive surgery. The hospital stay of the victims ranges between 6 and 12 weeks and the type of surgery depends on the extent of trauma to the food pipe and stomach.

The most common acids consumed by patients are toilet cleaners with low concentration of sulphuric acid. The reasons for spur-of-the-moment suicidal impulse are many. Some do it because of domestic quarrels others for failed love affairs. A young woman drank acid because her mother chided her for watching too much television, another because her mother disapproved of her boyfriend while a 12-year-old swallowed acid because of unbearable stomach pain.

The results of consuming these corrosive poisons range from minor abrasions and constrictors of the food pipe to extensive damage to the oesophagus and stomach.

As a result of the damage to the food pipe and stomach, patients are unable to eat, and in the worst cases, cannot even swallow saliva (dysphagia).

Sometimes, homespun remedies provided as first aid for victims of the poisoning proved to be even more damaging, explained S. M. Chandramohanan, surgical gastroenterologist at the hospital. He advised against trying to neutralise acids with alkalis or vice versa as the reaction produces heat and causes thermal damage. Another common folly is to try and induce vomiting in the patient using emetic agents because the refluxive action causes secondary damage to new areas, which had not been exposed to the acid.

Poisoning episode

Doctors say a poisoning episode affects not only the victim but family members as well. Often, those assisting the patient's recovery in hospital would include the family breadwinner. Besides, reconstructive surgeries being major operations many patients are forced to spend long periods in hospital.

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