Rap for fluorosis spread
- Experts blame state for neglecting Garhwa epidemic
Calcutta Telegraph - October 14, 2011
By BASANT KUMAR MOHANTY
New Delhi, Oct. 14: An expert panel appointed by the Centre has found to its horror that fluorosis has reached epidemic proportions in Garhwa as a result of the Jharkhand government’s negligence and failure to check the alarming spread of the disease.
The team, appointed by the Union ministry of drinking water and sanitation, visited the district last month and found men, women and children of all ages with deformities due to fluoride poisoning from ground water; and discovered that the district hospital had no testing facility for the disease about which local doctors had little or no knowledge.
Headed by Dr A.K. Susheela, executive director of Fluorosis Foundation of India, the team submitted its report to the minister for drinking water and sanitation Jairam Ramesh yesterday.
Ramesh said today his ministry was working on ways to implement the recommendations of the committee in consultation with the government of Jharkhand.
“I have sent the report to the chief minister. The deputy chief minister of Jharkhand is meeting on Monday in this regard,” he told The Telegraph.
The experts’ team first visited Pratappur habitation in Manohar Tola and found some women were crippled due to advanced stages of skeletal fluorosis. Large number of men and women were not able to walk without help of sticks.
Villagers told the team that despite repeated requests, the state government had failed to provide safe drinking water. Though the administration had started construction of a water treatment plant in 2006, the project had remained a non-starter due to lack of an electricity connection.
The team interacted with doctors from primary health centres and district hospitals. To much of its dismay, the team found that the doctors had never heard of fluorosis as a disease and were not aware of its existence in Garhwa district.
“This was the most shocking information. Fluorosis disease is prevailing in India for the last 74 years… High endemicity due to fluoride in drinking water and prevalence of fluorosis is being addressed in 19 states in the country which includes Jharkhand and doctors in Garhwa are blissfully ignorant of the disease,” said the report, a copy of which is with The Telegraph.
During the visit to the Garhwa district hospital, the team found there was no facility to test fluorosis. The panel recommended setting up a fluorosis diagnostic laboratory with trained technicians at the hospital.
Approximately 1,200 patients suspected of fluorosis were attending the OPD at Garhwa district hospital every month. But there were only five doctors in the hospital. A number of doctors’ posts were lying vacant.
The team also visited the water testing laboratory of the water supply department and discovered that it was non-functional since there were no technical staff.
The panel has recommended that the government set up facilities to treat surface water and provide it to the villagers through a network of pipes in the affected areas. Till the time the facilities were created, the government, the panel suggested, should provide safe drinking water though tankers.
The panel recommended that the ground water had to be tested in every gram panchayat and block in Garhwa. It has suggested that doctors and hospital administrators should be sensitised on all aspects of fluorosis diagnosis and diet counselling and prevention since fluorosis was a drugless disease.
SOURCE:
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