Patna, Bihar
Beena Bharti pinned her hopes on the doctors at the paediatric ward at the Patna Medical College and Hospital. The 25-year-old from Shivpura village in Kaimur district, about 193 km from the state capital Patna, worried about her six-year-old daughter, Lalita who has been admitted to the hospital with fever.
“She had a fever and became very weak. She was in the ICU for eight days, after which she was shifted to the general ward, and she is still there,” Beena told Gaon Connection. “But my child is still not conscious; she is not speaking at all. She has been in the hospital since September 19,” the young mother worried.
In all the four big hospitals of Patna – Nalanda Medical College & Hospital, Patna Medical College and Hospital, Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences and at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Patna – the children’s wards are full to bursting with children suffering from viral fever.
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Children have been dying of the fever too. “In September alone, about thirty kids have died of the viral fever,” Ajay Kumar, president of Indian Medical Association, Bihar, told Gaon Connection. “But the numbers are reducing and the government has successfully handled the situation,” he added.
On October 12, when Gaon Connection visited the Patna Medical College and Hospital, the veranda outside the ICU ward was crowded. Family members of the admitted children had spread out mats along the walls and were camping there. Some of them, exhausted perhaps after an all night vigil, had slept off.
On one side, a man was serving the hungry family members rice, dal and subzi, from two big steel vessels. Breakfast and dinner were being provided free to the family members of the patients by the hospital administration.
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“Fifteen to twenty per cent of the patients admitted to AIIMS since September have been children with viral fever,” Lokesh Tiwari, paediatrician, AIIMS Patna, told Gaon Connection. “There have been no deaths, and the recovery rate is hundred per cent now,” he added.
Rural Bihar in the grip of fever
The viral fever amongst the rural children has been particularly virulent in some places such as Siwan, Muzaffarpur, Danapur, Bihta and Kaimur. It has led to overcrowding in hospitals of Patna and a scarcity of beds.
At present, in Patna Medical College and Hospital, all the 67 beds in the children’s ward are occupied. The hospital usually has 50 beds but had to add 17 more to accommodate the cases.
About four kilometres away, in Nalanda Medical College & Hospital too, all 84 beds in the children’s ward are occupied.
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Anchal Kumari, along with her family members, has been living at Patna Medical College and Hospital for the past 11 days, without running water, toilet facilities or even any light. She is from Masaurhi, about 30 kms away from Patna. The daily wage labourer’s month old son is still at the hospital’s ICU with fever.
“I am poor. I have already spent one and a half lakh rupees treating my child at several private hospitals, but can’t afford it any more,” she told Gaon Connection. The Patna Medical College is a government hospital and treatment is free, hence Anchal had brought her newborn there.
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Crumbling health infrastructure
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), ideally, there should be one doctor for every 1,000 people. The standard ratio prescribed by WHO India is one doctor for every 1,500 people taking into account the huge population of the country.
However, “while according to WHO norms, the state should have 120,000 doctors, there are about forty to forty five thousand doctors in the state,” Ajay Kumar, the president of IMA, Bihar, stated.
As per the report, Best Practices in the Performance of District Hospitals, prepared by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and WHO India, and published by government think tank NITI Aayog, in October 2021, Bihar was ranked lowest as it had just six hospital beds for a population of 100,000. The India Public Health Standards 2012 guidelines, recommend district hospitals to maintain at least 22 beds per 100,000 population.
Even in India’s Sustainable Development Goal index, according to another report by NITI Aayog, published in June 2021, Bihar was at the bottom of the pile.
As per the NITI Aayog’s estimate, between 2017-18 and 2019-20, Bihar fell in position from 22 to 25 among 28 Indian states when it came to health. The state’s performance in achieving zero hunger was also poor.
In NITI Aayog’s June 2021 report, SDG India & DashBoard 2020-21, Bihar ranked 26 out of 28 states when it came to the health index. And, in the latest report of NITI Aayog, Best Practices in the Performance of District Hospitals, published this month, the state has slipped to the last position.
Last year, ahead of the 2020 Bihar Assembly Elections, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, had in his election manifesto promised to ramp up the health infrastructure as part of the Saat Nischay (seven resolves) Scheme that outlined development plans for the state for the next five years.
Meanwhile, a doctor from the paediatrics department of Patna Medical College and Hospital, on condition of anonymity, warned, “After the dengue, viral fever and swine flu amongst children, there may be an upsurge of chikungunya in several districts of the state.”
He added that there were instructions given to the primary health centres to conduct dengue tests as preliminary precaution. “This kind of fever is not new, this happens every year at the same season, and children, especially toddlers, suffer a lot,” he said.
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