CD, aged about 50 years is a farmer in the nearby district of Chattra which was quite far away. CD suffered a small injury of his left foot about 10 days back which he managed by putting some local medications.
Over the last 7 days, CD noted that he could not swallow, which slowly progressed to a stiffening of his back. As usual, he was taken to many a place before he ended up couple of days back at NJH. It impressed me that someone had actually diagnosed tetanus elsewhere and had referred him to us.
After MS, this was the third patient whom we had. We use the WHO protocol for management which we put him in. We had problems putting in a nasogastric tube as his oesophagus had gone into a terrible spasm. Till date, I’ve not been able to do anything about it even after he was put in all the available muscle relaxants.
Well, the reason I wrote about this patient was because of something I missed about this patient. Dr Nandamani noticed that the bystanders had got almost all of their medicines as hospital supply and it crossed his mind that if the family did not have money – did they have something to eat? Well, his hunch was true. The family had not eaten for almost a day after they reached NJH.
He got them something to eat from Raju’s shop. It was sad to see the family sitting in the waiting shed and whopping down the food.
It is unfortunate that even in the midst of the plenty that we claim to have in this country, people remain hungry and would not even open their mouth to tell others that they have not eaten anything for quite a long time.
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