Kaliapani: The spectre of child deaths in the hilltop Nagada village near here in Jajpur district has raised its hood again as another kid has died of jaundice due to lack of treatment and poverty Friday.
This has spread panic among the Juanga tribals living in the village. Nagada is a cluster of villages comprising Lower Nagada, Middle Nagada, Upper Nagada and other villages on a remote hill in Sukinda block.
The deceased, Sukura Padhan, (9), was the son of Mangala Padhan of Upper Nagada village, and a student of Class IV.
The child was suffering from an unknown disease for months. The matter came out when his family met the medical team visiting the village last month and told them about the child’s disease.
Observers asked how the illness of the kid could escape attention of the medical team which visited the village every week.
The government is spending crores and has set up a special taskforce for villages. A medical team also visits Nagada villages every week to check malnutrition and anaemia problems in Juanga children and pregnant women.
Two NGOs are also working for the tribals and they get handsome grants from the government. They claimed that the kid could have survived had he been treated in time.
The medical team admitted the child to the Sukinda Community Health Centre where doctors shifted him to the District Headquarters Hospital in Jajpur after his condition failed to improve even after four days of treatment.
There the doctors identified the disease as jaundice and his condition began to deteriorate. However, the doctors despite knowing that Mangala is a poor tribal, used to ask him to bring medicines from the local chemist shop instead of helping him to get government funds for medicines.
Mangala spent all the money on buying medicines for his son. They asked him to take back his son as treatment is impossible without medicines when he expressed his inability to buy drugs.
Mangala pleaded with the doctors and other patients, but the former refused to listen to him and shifted him to the Sishu Bhawan in Cuttack. Meanwhile, the condition of the kid deteriorated again.
The doctors at the Sishu Bhawan gave the kid some medicines for nine days but his condition deteriorated. Later, the doctors asked Mangala to take his son home after they saw no change in his condition.
Mangala returned home with his son Thursday, and the boy died in the wee hours of Friday. Child Development Project Officer Tilottama said the boy died despite being provided treatment in hospital.
PNN
