| | Damni Diari , a 60 year old tribal woman is sleeping on the verandah of her small hut in Debagandhana village in Lamtaput block of Koraput district while suffering from diarrhea for the last two days .She has already got up from the floor five times during the last 36 hours only to walk a distance with a great difficulty to go to the toilet in the open fields of the village , she said .Jamuna Diari,45,Budu Sisa,60,Jagat Hantal,35 and Rama Guntha,25 of the village have already died of diarrhea in the last one month’s time , Bhagvan Alang , a villager said .Speaking to ‘The Hindu’ in the village today , he said that the villagers were spending days with a sense of fear for the attack of the infection as no one new the cause of the outbreak and even the authorities who had visited the village a few days back went off without any answers or commitment .
The village is comparatively more clean than most of the villages of the mountainous region of Koraput district. The village with more than 300 households has got 7 tube wells which were used in the most proper manner and bleaching powder was spread all over after the initial visit of the officials a few days back ,Dinabandhu Dalapati , another villager added. The villagers had left consuming mushrooms and jackfruit for the fear of the spread of the infection even though they were available in plenty in the village .But surprisingly the infection was spreading like fire in the village , he wondered.
While the 10 km road to the PHC at Nanadapur was not in a god condition for the transfer of patients , there was no full time doctor available in the hospital for giving adequate and proper treatment to the ailing patient , he alleged . Everyday at least 40-50 patients were leaving the village for treatment either in the PHC at Nanadapur or in the absence of the doctor at the government hospital ,the villagers largely were forced to go to Asha Kiran hospital in Lamtaput block covering more than 60 km, Abhi Khora an elderly from the village added.
But that was also not that easy. While majority of the vehicle owners were not coming forward to carry the patients for the possible death of patients in their vehicles on the one hand even in the case of its availability it was difficult for the patient to pay at least Rs.500/- for the transportation to Asha Kiran hospital , he feared.
Looking at these difficulties , the villagers had urged the district administration to open a health camp in the village, as neither the ANM or any other health workers were in a position to attend the patients in need by staying outside the village , he added. Patients who were coming back from the hospitals were once again suffering from the same , Budu Guntha , a patient who had suffered the same after coming back to the village even after being administered more than 12 bottles of saline in the hospital said .
Relations from far and wide have reached the house of Dasuda Diari an woman from the village who was on the bed once again after returning back from the hospital on Thursday . Her two children were also suffering from some unknown disease . All were in a confused state as whether to take the patients to the hospital at Koraput or wait for some more days as the villagers were planning to invite some traditional healer to the village in a day or two . It would require about Rs12,000/- to organize the rituals ,Abhi Khora added. While the situation in the village was alarming , the villagers had little treatment and medicines near them to get relieved . Even the school hostel managed by the State Harijan &Tribal welfare Department had only 8 tablets of Metronodizole-400 mg. tablets as a precautionary measure for the 80 children who were staying in the hostel ,Hari Alman , the ward member of the village grieved.
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