Mumbai: TB patients languishing in hospitals often abandoned by their families
Last week, Amitabh Bachchan revealed he had tuberculosis (TB) in 2000. But the statement from one of the nation’s most venerated actors came too late for Dilip Kadam, 25, who ended his life at Sewri’s GTB (Group of Tuberculosis) Hospitals in October. He slashed his throat with a razor. Kadam, who was battling drug- resistant TB, was the third patient this year to commit suicide at the hospital.
Nurses who had treated Kadam said he had been abandoned by his
family, like many other patients at the city’s leading TB
hospital. His body was handed over to a relative who had learnt
about his death from newspapers. HT was unable to trace his
family, as the phone number they had left with KEM Hospital,
where Kadam breathed his last, was incorrect. In many cases,
families, who are desperate to escape the stigma of having a TB
patient amidst them, abandon relatives at the hospital. To clear
their tracks, they leave fake addresses or telephone numbers.
“It’s
not TB, but the stigma that kills many,” said a doctor who
counsels patients at the hospital. Medical experts working with
TB patients said Bachchan’s statement that he had been
cured of tuberculosis will raise the hopes of many abandoned
patients.
Manoj Pakhre lost the will to fight TB when
his family lost interest in supporting him. The 30-year-old
would wait for his mother to pay him a visit, said hospital
staff.
On May 28, when the wait became unbearable, he
tried to kill himself by slitting his throat with a shaving
blade. He survived the suicide attempt, but his body, by then
wasted to 20 kilos, gave up soon. A few days after his death,
his maternal uncle visited the hospital – Pakhre’s
first visitor since he had been admitted to the hospital 18
months ago – only to be told that the body was in the
morgue, awaiting a funeral.
While Pakhre’s body
was cremated in the presence of his family members, many
patients who pass away at the hospital in Sewri have a lonely
last journey. According to hospital records, an unclaimed body
of a patient is deposited every second day at the
hospital’s morgue. Since 2008, more than 900 TB patients
admitted to the hospital were abandoned. Their bodies were
either taken to the Bhoiwada crematorium or sent to anatomy
departments of medical colleges, to be used by medical
students.
Unlike other municipal hospitals where the
wards are crowded with relatives and visitors, the corridors of
this hospital wear a deserted look. The 1,200-odd patients
here are largely left alone. “Relatives come during the
first few weeks of hospitalisation, but when they learn the
recovery will take long, they just disappear,” said a
doctor working here for the past 35 years.
“We
shouldn’t be quick to blame the relatives. TB does not get
the attention that diseases such as cancer get; here, the
relatives are at risk of contracting the disease. They live in
small houses with children and other relatives. Everyone is
worried about contracting the infection during a visit to the
hospital.”
Source:
Hindustan Times
