The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Girl dies of gastroenteritis in Bangalore

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 19, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Girl dies of gastroenteritis in Bangalore

Staff Reporter

Epidemic-like situation in Nellurpuram slum at Jagadishnagar

Victim was taken ill after reportedly drinking contaminated water in a slum
Mahadevapura Medical Officer visits area and collects water samples for tests

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Concerned: A resident of Nellurpuram slum with symptoms of gastroenteritis being treated at a makeshift clinic on a school premises in the slum area in Bangalore on Friday.

Bangalore: An epidemic-like situation seems to have broken out in the long-neglected Nellurpuram slum at Jagadishnagar in the erstwhile K.R. Puram City Municipal Corporation (CMC) limits.

A seven-year-old girl died of gastroenteritis and 24 people are suffering from diarrhoea. Of these, seven are suspected to have gastroenteritis.

According to Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) health officials, who are running a makeshift clinic on a school premises at the slum, six cases of gastroenteritis were reported there on Thursday.

On Thursday morning, seven-year-old Pooja was taken ill after reportedly drinking contaminated water in the slum. She had continuous bouts of vomiting and was taken to Epidemic Diseases Hospital (Isolation), but died reportedly due to inadequate treatment.

The Hindu team that visited the place noticed that the drinking water pipeline runs right near the drainage and that it is badly corroded.

The area does not get water from BWSSB as the board is yet to lay pipelines there. The residents of the slum are getting CMC borewell water.

Symptoms

Four people from Pooja’s family have also taken ill with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea. They include Pooja’s four-year-old twin brothers Ramu and Lakshman, both diagnosed with gastroenteritis.

On Friday evening, Pooja’s infant sister Roja and grandmother also seem to have developed diarrhoea and vomiting.

“We had sent Pooja to Tamil Nadu where she was studying in the second standard. She came here only to see her brother Ramu who was admitted to Isolation Hospital. She was perfectly all right till yesterday morning,” said her distraught mother Devi.

According to family members, Pooja developed severe vomiting early in the morning. “When the bouts of vomiting did not stop, we took her to Isolation Hospital around 9 a.m. We kept waiting, but no doctor was in sight.

“When Pooja’s condition worsened a staff nurse put her on intravenous fluids. But her condition did not improve and she was not given any medication to stop her vomiting,” Ms. Devi said.

Later in the afternoon, even though a doctor came to the ward he reportedly did not examine Pooja, but wrote some medicine which the parents had to get from outside.

“She just kept sinking, but nobody helped us. So around 3 p.m. we took her home and just prayed that she would be all right,” her mother said. Pooja died around 6 p.m.

“For everything they ask money. How will poor people like us be able to pay hundreds of rupees? What is the use of having government hospitals meant for the poor, if they do not treat us in times of need?” asked Sampangiamma, Pooja’s aunt.

Meanwhile, many people from the slum gathered near the makeshift clinic as patients kept pouring in.

“Even though there were at least five emergency cases, there is no ambulance to shift the patients. The residents themselves have been taking the patients to various hospitals,” Venkatesh, a resident, said. He said that because of the rains, the drinking water had got contaminated with sewage, but the authorities had not done anything.

Basavaraj Huded, Mahadevapura Medical Officer, visited the area and collected water samples for tests. The report is expected in three days.

Medical Superintendent M.N. Gangadharaiah and the duty doctor kept insisting that Pooja was brought dead to the hospital only on Friday morning even though a section of the media had reported the death on Thursday. If the death occurred on Friday (as the hospital claims) how did it get reported in the media one day before?

Despite claims by the Department of Health and Family Welfare that the number of gastroenteritis cases has come down in the last few years, the numbers tell a different story.

In 2005, 3,044 cases of gastroenteritis were reported at the Epidemic Disease Hospital while in 2006, the number was 3,150. This year too, quite a few cases have been reported from L.R. Nagar slum, Maruthiseva Nagar, Koramangala, Jagadishnagar and Shivajinagar areas in the city. Hospital authorities refused to divulge the number of cases reported this year.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka