No psychiatrists in drought areas

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday raised the need to counsel farmers in the state Assembly to help curb farmer suicides.
However, it has come to light that Marathwada and Vidarbha that record the highest number of farmer suicides, do not have a single psychiatrist in the seven government hospitals to counsel them.
This year, more than 1,000 farmers committed suicide in the state due to the continuing agrarian crisis for successive years. To address the issue, the central government is laying importance on the counselling of the depressed farmers in drought-prone areas.

Each week, JJ Hospital treats abused boys

Twelve-year-old Arijit Chauhan (name changed) used to lie awake at night because of the pain caused by blisters on his private parts. When his parents finally took him to JJ Hospital for a check up, they were shocked to learn that their son was suffering from a sexually transmitted disease caused by sexual abuse.
“Every week, we receive 2-3 such cases in which a boy is sexually abused. Some of them are so severe, that they require surgical intervention,” said Dr Minakshi Nalbale Bhosale, a paediatric surgeon from the hospital.

100 farmers to auction their organs

Condemning a recent incident where a debt-ridden farmer was forced to sell his kidney, 100 farmers from Aurangabad will hold a protest on Thursday where they will auction their organs to the public to repay their debt.
“We are suffocating under the burden of debt. Every day, goons of moneylenders keep knocking at our doors. Due to this, we can’t even go outside. We have no other option but to sell our body parts,” said Jayaji Suryavanshi, a farmer and social activist.
At a time when the government is keen to counsel debt-ridden farmers to stop them from ending their lives, farmers appear dissatisfied with the

62 per cent medical consultant posts lie vacant in BMC hospitals

Despite increasing the monthly salary of specialty medical consultants to Rs 75,000 in hand, the 18 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) peripheral hospitals in the city are facing an acute staff shortage of 62 per cent.
There are total 217 posts in five branches of medical consultants — medicine, pediatrics, gynecology, surgery and anesthesia in these hospitals. Out of these only 84 seats have been filled up, while remaining 133 posts are lying vacant for years.

HIV+ former sex worker becomes a Masters student

Kruti Khan (name changed on request) was around 26 when she realised that she had been infected with HIV. As she had been working as a sex worker for almost a decade, it was not possible for her to determine whom she received the infection from. However, being HIV positive did not stop Kripa from following her dreams. Determined to be successful in life, Kruti took up studying again and graduated with a degree in BCom and is currently doing her Masters in IT from a state open university.

Fund crunch puts infants at risk

An awareness programme aimed at helping HIV pregnant women to save their babies from contracting the infection is set to die a sudden death. The programme, which had been running for decades, will be discontinued from today as National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has refused to grant funds for it to Maharashtra. Every other state in the country has, however, been granted its share of the fund.
Reshma Khan (name changed), the 27-year-old resident of Nerul gave birth to a child two months ago at JJ Hospital. But she can’t breastfeed her baby as the HIV virus in her blood might get transferred to the infant who has born without the infection.

Blood going waste in BR Ambedkar hospital

The cold storage centre for blood at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital has been lying unused and gathering dust for the past two years. The municipal corporation hospital was renovated at an expense of `100 cr in 2013. While patients who visit the hospital are suffering and donated blood is getting wasted from the lack of cold storage facility, government bodies are busy passing the buck.
Two years ago, the state government had a plan to set up nine blood storage units in Mumbai that would operate under the primary blood bank, Sir JJ Mahanagar Raktapedhi in Byculla. But as per a Right to Information (RTI) application, a request for plan approval of blood storage center at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital was submitted to Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) twice on December 9, 2013 and July 16, 2014. Further, on November 17, 2014 and May 11, 2015 the hospital had again sent two letters to FDA asking about the status of the application. But no response has yet been received by the hospital authority.

State ill-equipped to screen kids

Union health minister J.P. Nadda inaugurated pentavalent vaccines in Maharashtra with much fanfare on Monday, but the state lacks the infrastructure to investigate the associated health issues of infants before vaccinating them, which can lead to hospitalisation and death.
Every year, thousands of children are injected with vaccines to bring down the mortality rate. Most of the newborns are provided with vaccines within the first few weeks of birth. But there are many cases where infants succumb after vaccination due to ‘Adverse Effect of Immunisation’, known as AEFI.

Hospitals still ill-equipped for crises

The Paris attacks are an uncomfortable reminder of the 60-hour siege of 26/11 that killed 166 people and injured more than 300 in Mumbai. However, the government is yet to learn a lesson from the crisis that prevailed in hospitals thereafter. As per data available with The Asian Age, both government and municipal hospitals in Mumbai are reeling under vacancies. Also, seven years down the line, the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Act is yet to be implemented in Mumbai.