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Government’s ‘apathy’ adds to patient’s woes

KORAPUT: Guru Khosla, a 3-year-old patient from Janiguda near Koraput is lying on the bed in his hut for the failure of the State government to keep its promise to post a child specialist in the district headquarters hospital. Guru, the only child of Niram Khosla, had suffered burns when he fell into the fire made in the village to fight the shivering cold a few days ago. Even though the little child was rushed to hospital by the villagers, he could not be treated in the district headquarters hospital for the absence of a child specialist and hence looking at the seriousness of the case he was referred to the sub-divisional hospital at Jeypore, a town at 22 km from Koraput, Saraswati Khosla, his mother says.

Guru was admitted to the hospital at Jeypore and underwent treatment where the family had to spend Rs.700 towards medicines, a burden that a BPL card holder could hardly bear. Guru was brought back to Koraput after a few days. But soon vexed with the frequent travel to Jeypore from his village near Koraput and the expenditure incurred, he had to be brought back home, says Niram. Guru fell ill once again as soon as he was back at home forcing the family members to admit him to the hospital at Koraput.

While father Niram donated the first bottle of blood, there was no one to give the second one. Moreover looking at the urgency of the family to get blood for their child, a commercial blood donor from the locality offered to share his blood for Rs. 800. But poor Niram, a BPL card holder had no more money to spend for his ailing child and hence took back Guru from the hospital to treat in the hands of a traditional healer back at home. While the government was putting their efforts to attract the villagers living in rural areas to take the support of the trained medicos in hospitals, the story of Guru was only one of many instances where the villagers had to approach their traditional healers even after coming to the hospitals for the absence of services by the government.

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