Parents of encephalitis-struck kids turn to God for healing

Rising number of deaths due to the disease has made the prime minister's office take notice. A three-member health team from Delhi will be visiting the hospital on Friday to take stock of the situation. M I Khan reports.

Renu Devi has lost all hope, as her four-year-old child is fighting a battle for life after contracting Japanese encephalitis. Renu Devi is no more paying attention to repeated assurances from doctors that her child will survive. She now sits praying on the bed of her child in the encephalitis ward at Anugrah Narain Medical College and Hospital (ANMCH) in Gaya, about 100 km from Patna.

Renu, in her late 20s, is not alone. There are nearly two dozen parents like her, who have turned to God for the well-being of their children. They are restless and 
fear the worst. 

"We admitted our child on November 4 in the hospital but there is no sign of improvement. He is still in a critical condition. Only god can save him now," said Renu.

Renu said that she along with two of her family members have been staying in the hospital for two weeks. "It has been a long wait for us," she said. 

Arjun Manjhi, another parent of an encephalitis affected girl child said that he was praying to god and goddesses for the recovery of his daughter. "What can we do, we 
are helpless, a divine blessing is our last hope," said Manjjhi, who belongs to the Musahar caste, a rat-eating community, who breed pigs for a living and lives in abject poverty. 

Superintendent of ANMCH, Sitaram Prasad, said that majority of children died due to encephalitis belong to Mahadalit community. "It is a hard fact that encephalitis hit 
poor children, who are also malnourished," Singh said. He blamed their poor living conditions for the disease affecting them.

Mantu Manjjhi, another Mahadalit, sitting on the floor near a bed in the same encephalitis ward initially refused to say anything. But after Arjun convinced him, he expressed his pain in one sentence in the local Maghi dialect of Hindi, "Hum garibwan ke bachwan mar rahal hain, amirwan ke na, ke sunewala hai hian, sab bahgwan bharosa hai'(children of the poor are dying, not of the rich, no one is taking it seriously, everything is at the mercy of god). 

Manjhi's seven-year-old nephew is fighting for his life at the hospital.

Sandeep Kumar, a 10-year-old boy, who survived after the disease has however developed severe neurological complications leading to movement disorders of his hands and one leg. Like several others, Sandeep lies helplessly in a state of dystonia, having been struck by encephalitis.

"It is common among more than thirty percent children who have survived encephalitis," A K Ravi, head of the Pediatrics Department of the hospital said.

An assistant staff of the hospital deputed to the encephalitis ward, told rediff.com on condition of anonymity that the state government is responsible for 
the deaths of a large number of children due to encephalitis. "There is a shortage of doctors, medicines, essential equipments like ventilators," he said.

According to him the intensive care units (ICUs) and the ventilators were not functional in the hospital that led to deaths of over two dozen children. There are only three doctors in the pediatrics department.

"It is a pathetic situation in the hospital despite top officials of the state health department visiting in September and October," he said.

Singh admitted that shortage of staff hit treatment of children affected by encephalitis. Anaesthesia department has urged me to train the employees of the department on how to operate the ventilators. The superintendent said the hospital needed medical officers to make all five ICUs operational.

He said that he had written to the health department to provide adequate medical officers so that the ICUs can function.

The state health minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey has dispatched the state health department principal secretary Amarjeet Sinha to visit to the hospital on Friday following the news of encephalitis killing 85 children.

A three-member health team from Delhi is also visiting the hospital on Friday to take stock of the situation after the prime minister's office took the issue of death of children seriously two days ago.

A district administration official said that encephalitis hit Gaya in 2009, 2007 and 2005, and killed dozens of children.