Heights of Ignorance

If you search my blog, there is a post with a similar title written on September 3, 2013.

I was aghast at finding a similar report in our local newspaper few days back.

Below is the clip.

The headline screams - Superstition: Buried dead body of girl exhumed on instructions from traditional medicine-man. Medicine-man claims that dead girl will live. 

The news report is about a family who lost their 6 year old daughter after a snakebite. After the dead body of the girl was buried, a traditional medicine-man turned up who claimed that the girl is not dead, but alive. The family readily exhumed the dead body. However, when the family shifted the body for witchcraft, the local temple priest declared that the girl was dead. 

The incident happened in Kankari village, which is 11 kilometers from the Palamu district headquarters of Medhininagar, previously called Daltonganj. 

Referred by a Jhad Phuk

Couple of weeks back, we had a young boy wheeled in. It was late evening, just after we finished our outpatient work.

The history was that of a bite at dawn while he was sleeping on the floor. The boy had seen the snake slightering off into the dark but could not identify it.

As is common practice, he was taken to the jhad phuk who did his chanting and gave some medicine. He proclaimed that the boy was free of any poison and therefore sent him home. The family did not make much about the snake bite and took him home.

At home, our dear friend started to feel quite funny. He noticed that he was having difficult keeping his eyes open as well as there was a funny feeling on his throat. He thought that it must be something which he ate that got stuck in his throat. By the time, school was over late afternoon, he realised that something was grossly wrong with him.

The parents linked the symptoms to the snake bite which he had early morning and took him again to the witch doctor. The witch doctor did his mumbo-jumbo and then proclaimed that it does not look like a snake bite, rather it looks like a Bengal Monitor bite. He washed his hands off the patient and asked them to take him to a proper hospital.

After a visit to one more jhad phuk, they arrived at KCH - a full 13 hours after the bite.

It was a very obvious neurotoxic bite. I conveyed the diagnosis to the relatives and gave the option of treating or taking to a higher centre. Well, you may be surprised that I gave them the option to take to a higher centre. The reason was that there was a very portly and goon looking gentleman among the bunch of relatives who argued with me that it was not a case of snake bite.

He told me that the jhad phuk whom he went was a very famous witch doctor and his success was 60-70% - which meant that 30-40% died! That gave me enough ammunition to discredit the jhad phuk – I told him that the jhad phuk will have a better success rate if he left the patient alone, because of 100 bites, only 15 bites would be those with envenomation and of that too only 4 will die without treatment.

The printed material on snake bite which we had prepared recently was a great help. I was glad that there were couple of our previous patients who had come for dressing of their cobra bite wounds who supported my view.

Ultimately the family decided to stay at KCH and allow ASV to be given. Thankfully, he recovered well overnight. However, the surprising thing was that the next day night, his mother and elder sister also sustained snake bite and come to us straightaway. Thankfully, there were no signs of envenomation in both of them.

Recently, we've had been having discussions about how to manage snake bite. There are quite a few people who believe that it should be according to identification of the culprit snake. However, I believe that the approach should be based more on the clinical presentation. The case of the chameleon bite and this case is ample evidence in support of a syndromic approach. 

After 48 hours in the hospital, the young boy was ready for discharge. Although it was a krait bite, he ended up with a bandage as the quack had made quite a few deep incisions around the bite site. 

It was quite heartening to see the relatives thank us for opening their eyes on how the witch doctors exploit poor village folk.

Of dark ages . . .

Recently, we’ve had quite a lot of debates about propriety of having a mission to Mars when quite a large part of the country is so backward and in dire poverty. Of course, the Mangalyan program is commendable and we all are proud of it. However, I strongly feel that stories of neglect and backwardness of our great nation have to be shared. The major reason being the fact that a widening gap between the rich and the poor is something which could hamper the progress of the nation.

So, stories of 2 families in this series .  . . The first one . . .

BB, a 3 week old child was brought by his parents more than a week back. It was so obvious that BB was very very sick. He was not crying and only had a blank stare on his face. Of course, he was not feeding. BB has been sick since the previous day afternoon. BB was brought to the clinic where I sit twice a week the previous evening. However, since I was away, the nurses had referred him to a higher centre.

BB’s parents were very poor. They had taken him to a wizard and he told them that he needs some costly procedures to be done. They had no money to take the baby to a higher centre or to pay the wizard.

We had no choice but to admit the child. By God’s grace, he responded well to antibiotics. However, as soon as the baby was active, the parents wanted to take him home. Later, we came to know that a grandparent had suggested that he be also shown to the wizard so that the disease is completely cured and therefore the urgency to go home.

The parents left with the baby with a promise that he would be brought twice a day for his intravenous antibiotics. They kept their promise. However, the next day, the parents were very anxious to meet me. They narrated to us that the witch doctor has taken out a dozen pieces of bones from the baby’s stomach which was causing all the disease.

They were very confident that the baby will be totally alright now. One of colleagues was quite flabbergasted at their story. He gave them a good piece of his mind.

However, it was quite obvious that they very much believed what the witch doctor has told them.

Occult in its various forms are quite common in our country. However, the poor suffer from it the most. BB’s parents told me that the cost of ‘taking out the stones’ was couple of country chicken which costs a minimum of 600 INR.

We commonly hear about worse forms of occult practice. Elderly women, mostly widows are branded as witches when something untoward happens to someone. These women are hounded, beaten up and in many instances mercilessly killed. One police officer told me of an incident where a widow was decapitated and the head was brought to the police station by the entire village, and nobody could do anything about it. Even, FIRs (first information report) are filed against suspected witches for ill-happenings. And the police are at a loss to do anything.

I wish that witch-craft is something that needs to be dealt with in rural communities of the country. It is not easy. It would need quite a lot of advocacy among the community and its leaders and the success in eradicating it would need community support. However, the benefits would be quite a lot.

The second story in my next post . . . 

Heights of ignorance . . . cont'd

I had quite a few people asking me where the incident mentioned in my previous post had happened. 

That's the most unfortunate part. 

The incident happened at a place called Lehelehe which is just beyond Satbarwa, which is our nearest village market. 

One more incident about a family which has been branded as having killed their neighbor by witchcraft has come to light. This is also at a place which is quite close to our hospital. 

Below is the newspaper clipping. 

The family is being boycotted by their fellow villagers on the orders of the local village government (The Panchayat). 

Another example of ignorance and the 'fear of the unknown'. 

Heights of ignorance

Below is a news item which was quite prominent in our local daily. For those who don't know Hindi, I've written up a summary of the news. 

The story is that of a lady who died of a snake bite. She was buried. 

Then, the body was exhumed and witchcraft done to resurrect her. 

Not once . . . but twice. Yes, the body was exhumed twice. First, by the husband's family and later by the parents of the lady. 

Amazing . . . Isn't it? 

The Occult . . . And Worse . . .

Below, is a clip of a news item published in our vernacular daily last week.

The translation is as follows -

It has been reported that a certain Mr. Mukhan Ram (55 years), a resident of Dharuwa village under Kanti Police Station was paraded in the village after having his hair tonsured. Mr. Mukhan Ram is a witch doctor by profession since the last 10 years.

The Panchayat had decided that Mr Mukhan should be punished in social, economic and psychological terms. In relation to the incident, villagers reported that the wedding of the daughter of a certain Umesh Ram took place on 23rd April. Mr. Mukhan had done a certain ritual during the wedding. After the ceremony, when the girl was leaving her house to her husband’s place, she had become unconscious. The girl’s father, Mr. Umesh Ram brought a new witch doctor for further ceremonies from Belchampa, Palamu. The new witch doctor proved by his magic powers that Mr. Mukhan Ram was responsible for the girl becoming unconscious after the wedding ceremony.

Mr. Mukhan Ram’s wife got into a fight with the family of the girl after hearing this. Mr. Umesh has demanded that Mr. Mukhan Ram pay up 25,000 INR which he had to spend towards getting his daughter alright after she had swooned during after the wedding ceremony. The Panchayat has given a time frame to Mr. Mukhan to pay up this amount.

Amazing, for two reasons -

1. First and foremost – the newspaper deciding to put this into print.

2. Second – to note that we continue to incidents like these in our country. Most probably, the girl would have too tired and probably hypoglycemic after the ‘long Indian wedding’ – and that was enough for a witch doctor to extract 25,000 INR from the family towards healing her . . .

My countrymen, we can only weep for our fellow brothers and sisters who are caught up in this mire of ignorance and sorcery . . . 

The Occult

SK's parents had a very peculiar request about 4 days back. Initially, they told that they wanted to take her to Ranchi. I knew that this was not going to happen as couple of her neighbours had informed me quite early that the family was too poor to even pay the medical bills at NJH.

I called the father separately. I asked him about the request to take to Ranchi. He told me that the family was planning to take SK home to die. But, he was also going to try out some black magic – called ‘jhad phuk’ in local terms by the witchdoctor called ‘ojha’.

It was unbelievable. But, true in rural areas in third world countries. After much persuasion, he agreed to allow us to try to save his daughter.

It is not uncommon to see new amulets being tied around patient’s wrists or put along with a necklace while they are still admitted in hospital.

Couple of photographs of patients with things tied around their bodies.

IK, who was clinically diagnosed to have encephalitis - he was too sick to be even taken elsewhere. He made a remarkable recovery. If you look carefully you can see one blue colored and a white colored thing tied over his left shoulder. IK's father had quite a lot of faith on the treatment we were giving him. Then, I asked him about the reason for the extra things which used to change almost every alternate day. IK's father would only giggle in reply.

I found this tied on AS's arm couple of hours after I had admitted him. I am sure that it was not there when he had come in. Unlike what I had expected, AS was taken to the nearest medical college hospital the next day morning. But, he passed away the very next day.

It is quite rare that we see patients especially with medical complaints who does not have one of these amulets tied around their neck or wrist. Many a time, especially with snake bites, they perform quite elaborate rituals before they bring the patients for treatment.

I'm not sure of having seen such practices in any other place to such an extent as I've been seeing here. I don't know about practices in other parts of the world.