Translate The Content in Your Local Language

Tuesday 30 July 2013

Deaf and dumb, this kid can be cured if... Patna

When Ayush was born - as hale and hearty as any other baby his age - in 2006, his father Narad Thakur never thought the diarrhoea that every baby suffers from while teething would render him deaf and, resultantly, dumb. Seven years on, the father-son duo continue to knock the doors of one and all for the humble barber at Bikhna Pahadi cannot afford to pay the Rs 8 lakh that the doctors at AIIMS-Delhi estimate to be the cost to cure the 7-year-old.



Narad blames his child's woes on the negligence of the paediatrician who attended on him while he was teething. "My family members also thought it to be ordinary diarrhoea, but complications continued even after six months and he thinned and thinned. He was then down with chickenpox. We took him to this child specialist who said he had TB."



A native of Nawada, Narad said Ayush subsequently stopped reacting to sounds and even addresses to him. "I am a poor barber who cannot fight with a doctor. Also, I don't have proof against the doctor as it was much later that we realized Ayush had stopped hearing," Narad said, explaining why he didn't want to name the doctor.



As doctors in Patna proved of no help, the daily wage earner took his child to Vellore and Delhi. At AIIMS-Delhi, the doctors diagnosed Ayush's disorder as bilateral profound hearing loss and advised cochlear implant which costs around Rs 8 lakh.



Not that the poor man threw in his towel then and there. The BPL card holder somehow approached Muzaffarpur MP Jayanarayan Nishad who wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in March this year, seeking a directive to the AIIMS to treat the child free of cost or provide him the cost of treatment from the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund.



In May this year, the Prime Minister's Office wrote to Narad that a sum of Rs three lakh had been sanctioned to defray the expenses involved in the treatment of the child. Undeterred, Narad moved chief minister Nitish Kumar for aid from the Mukhya Mantri Chikitsa Sahayata Kosh. Citing rules, however, the committee that takes a call on such applications turned down Narad's request.



The harried father has now pinned hopes on charity from fellow citizens. Having heard the child's story, a Maner resident has donated Rs 25,000 to him. "But even Rs 3.25 lakh is like a drop in the ocean, isn't it?" asked Narad.
Source : TOI , 30th July 2013 

No comments:

Post a Comment