Madwa 2014 . . .

As part of our Community Development project targeting Climate Change, our team has facilitated the reintroduction of finger millet cultivation in the region. Last year (2013), we had about 40 farmers who cultivated in a total of about 4 acres. This year, we had about 230 farmers who cultivated a total of about 12 acres.

Last week, during the US-led “Dialogue on Nutrition” held at the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), FAO Deputy Director-General Daniel Gustafson highlighted that "good nutrition must begin with agriculture." 

It was a privilege to have Professor Z A Haider from the Birsa Agriculture University, Ranchi visiting the region, to follow up on our work among the farmers. The program becomes all the more significant in the light of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. I’m yet to go through the whole report. But, from a  news-item of the same in Down To Earth, the future looks pretty grim.

Snaps of the visit . . . and more discussions later . . .  

At Patna village . . .

Walking into the fields . . . 

Another field . . . Prof. Haider was very much impressed . . .

Prof. Haider interacting with the farmer . . .

This plot of ground was a major revelation for the entire team. More on this in the next post . . .

Going further . . . 

More interaction with farmers . . . 

Field at Charwadih . . . 

Quite a large field at Murma . . . 

The field at NJH campus . . .

Field at Bohita village . . . 

Interacting with people from potential new cultivation areas for the next year.
We had a very interesting dialogue. Shall write in detail about it in the next post.
Looking forward for madwa cultivation in Barwadih block next year. 

To treat or not . . .

As mentioned in my previous post of malnutrition, one of the major aspects that most of us doctors forget is the innate ability of the body to heal itself.

What happens if you don’t treat your pneumonia. Yes, there is a higher chance of dying and getting complications in the absence of treatment. However, there is a good chance of escaping unscathed even without medicines. Maybe, there would be delay in your getting better. Of course, there are major determinants of spontaneous healing like non-extremes of age, good nutrition, hygienic environs etc.

As public health consultants, we’ve been taught in school about risks and benefits. One of terms that helped me quite a lot was the concept of number needed to treat (NNT).

I was so happy to see a website called TheNNT.com where one can find out more about the concept. Recently, there was a good article about it. I’m sure you’re going to get quite a few surprises about many of the traditional treatment protocols that we commonly use.

Some of my favorites . . . 

- Combined inhalers vs Steroid Inhalers for Adults with Asthma

- Coronary Heart Bypass for Prevention of Death

- Diagnostic testing for patient reassurance

- Vitamin D for fracture prevention

- Screening mammography for reducing deaths

- Routine health checkups for reducing mortality and morbidity

- Anti-hypertensives for cardiovascular event prevention in mild hypertension

So, do check out if you really need to prescribe something about which you're not really sure about. You save a lot of money for your patient and maybe even prevent unnecessary complications . . . 

Itch, Itch, Itch . . .

Few days back, a mother brought her 10 year old boy to the clinic. Her complaint was that the boy told her that something was wrong with his private parts. I asked him what the problem was. He told that he is having severe itching and there is infected wounds filled with pus in his genital areas.

After quite persuasion, he agreed to let me examine him. His scrotum and penis was covered with pus filled ulcerated areas. There were few lesions which appeared to have healed resulting in quite bad scars in his scrotum and penis. I asked him if there was pain. He told that the pain was tolerable, but what he could not tolerate was the itching at night.

There was only one diagnosis – scabies with secondary infection. However, I had never seen this much extent of secondary infection in scabies. After advising the parents on the possible diagnosis, I got assurance from them that they would come within couple of days after I start treatment for review.

I was surprised to find the boy back after couple of days. He appeared quite cheerful. Once I was inside the clinic, I realized that the parents and his brother also had registered themselves for check-up. To my horror, all three of them had scabies over various parts of their body. And for the boy on whom I had started antibiotics, all the pustular lesions had healed and the lesions which are very typical of scabies was very obvious.

All four of them were started on topical applications to treat the scabies.

However, I was in for another surprise later that day. For the first time in my life, I saw an infant of less than 2 months of age with scabies. Of course, the mother also had scabies infestation on her body. The interesting thing was that the mother never thought of the skin lesions very seriously. Her main complaint was that the baby was crying throughout the night as if he was in pain. Little did she know that the itching was bothering the baby.

Scabies as an indication of poor personal hygiene. 

Yesterday, I was on a field visit with Prof. Haider, Professor of Birsa Agricultural University. It was very obvious during the visit to most villages that the drought has started to affect the daily activities of the villagers. Water was a precious commodity. Taking bath even once a day was a premium. The women were the worst affected.

The issue is that treatment of scabies also involves advise to take bath regularly as well as to wash all clothes, especially undergarments in boiling water. I wonder how this family is going to find enough water to do all that. 

I’m sure that I would be seeing a lot more of scabies over the next few weeks. I would also be interested to see what other diseases can a drought bring about. With an obvious issue with food security, my gut feeling is that we would be seeing an increase in the number of chronic infections especially tuberculosis.

Immuno-compromised by Malnutrition

One of my favorite quotes is that by William Osler about the usage of medicine.

Unfortunately, almost all of us believe that medicines are the elixir of life. And when we take medicines, we want quick relief. Almost all over the country, quacks and non-qualified practioners have thrived on this and one of the major challenges in the healthcare scenario of the country is the unbridled use of medicines especially antibiotics and steroids. Of course, the pharmaceutical industry all the more promotes such usage. 

And as doctors we fail to understand the inherent nature of the body to heal itself, which is very evident by the way many of us prescribe medicines.

This becomes a major issue in poor and marginalized communities of the world as it is quite a fashionable thing to resort to medicines and injections and get well. A very dangerous trend when we look at the fact that issues of sanitation and nutrition are hardly given any serious thought.

I personally believe that in India, malnutrition is the most serious form of immune-compromised state. As medical students, we were trained to think of only HIV patients and patients on immune-suppressive medicines to be immunosuppressed. I hope to see a change in the attitude that many of our medical colleges have towards malnutrition. We don’t see many HIV patients or patients on immunosuppressive medicine, but we see so many malnourished.

In Barwadih, the population of which comprises mainly on permanent residents of the Kherwar tribe and a migrant population of people from Bihar and Munda tribals from the Ranchi plateau, we are stunned by the amount of malnutrition we see. We did a rough survey of children who come to us and it was quite alarming to find that almost 70-80% of under-fives who come to us are at least moderately malnourished. I’m sure the situation would be worse if we do a community based survey.

And I dream to do a community based survey to highlight the gravity of the problem in hard-to-reach areas. I’m sure that there are going to many determinants of this health issue which could be different from other regions.

The challenge is to find long term solutions especially in a situation where more than half of the nation’s under fives are malnourished. 

And Primitive Behavior . . .

The second story is that of CC, a 2 month old boy. Similar to BB, CC also was brought in a very serious condition. The baby was small for his age and he was in full blown sepsis. CC was born with a birth weight of 2.3 kilograms and now, after 2 months, he weighed 2.4 kilograms.

We all tried our best to refer CC to a higher centre. CC’s parents were dirt poor. They told that they had some problems at home and therefore it was totally out of question to take him elsewhere.

With the customary high risk consent, we started off treatment. There was no respite for the first 2 days. The baby was listless and was not at all feeding. Both these days we tried our best to ensure that he is taken to a specialist centre.

On the evening of the 2^nd day of admission, his condition looked so bad that the local parish priest went to the parent’s village to convince the village elders to take the baby to a higher centre. He was surprised to find a panchayat in progress with the baby’s father sitting in the centre.

Later, we found out that the panchayat had met following a complaint against the baby’s parents from the grandmother of the baby that she was thrown out of the house and that they were not taking care of her. We also found out that CC’s mother was the second wife and the first wife was also living in the same house. And it was not uncommon for either of the wives to mistreat the other as well as the other’s children.

And to make matters more complicated, there was hardly any hour of the day when the father did not have alcohol running in his veins. In fact, after the panchayat was over, he came to the clinic reeking of alcohol. 

We confronted the father about the problems in his home. There was hardly anything to eat at home. The customary breakfast was boiled corn meal and the dinner was rice gruel. There was no lunch. No lentils (dhal) . . . no vegetables . . . leave alone egg, milk or fish . . .

It was by now very obvious that the family had hardly any resources to take the baby even to a local private clinic. He brought him to us expecting us to give concessionary treatement.

By God’s grace, the child showed some amount of improvement on the third day and by the fourth day, he started to feed.

We’ve written off the entire bill.

Well, this is quite a common story for me since I’ve come to know this region. And from colleagues and friends working in similar situations in many of the EAG states, the situation is no different.

I wonder what does the Mangalyan mission mean to parents of CC and BB and similar families in the rest of the country?