In many hill area villages of the district people who suspect having the disease can´t even have a checkup due to the absence of health workers and they remain at home with the disease for up to a month. These patients then transmit the disease to others.
“I had to stay at home for one month for lack of diagniosis,” rues Kul Bahadur BK of Jaubari. He says many more have been suffering for lack of counseling and medicines that are provided free by the government.
The sub-health post at Jaubari is run by a peon in the absence of the auxiliary health worker assigned there. Similarly, the laboratory at Bulingtar, the only primary health center for the hilly area of the district, is not providing its services for lack of a lab assistant and patients have to spend over Rs 100 to travel to Nawalpur for laboratory services. The locals say the staff are not in regular attendence at the health center because even the doctor assigned there remains absent.
“If one goes there for treatment, they ask us to go to Damkauli. We can´t do that for lack of money and by the time we do manage to do so the disease is already serious,” Narayan Puri of Bulingtar says. “We don´t even get cetamol (paracetamol) here; forget about TB medicine,” Puri adds.
The district health office claims that around five or six TB patients in each hill village are being provided medicines regularly under the Directly Observed Treatment System (DOTS) but the patients insist they get the medicines only at Damkauli.
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