By Bhabesh Medhi
Guwahati: Tuberculosis (TB) had wreaked havoc for Minu Puran (name changed) six years back. A worker of a tea estate in Assam's Jorhat district, Minu had lost her husband, one of her sons and a daughter to TB. A TB survivor herself, Minu now lives with her younger son. "It was too late when my husband got infected with TB, we could not save him. My eldest son and daughter also got infected with TB later and died after some years," said Minu while recalling the tough times. Although Minu survived after treatment, the disease impacted her work.
"I was not able to work for a long time due to weakness. Now I am cured and resumed my plucking work in the tea garden," said the 48-year-old tea garden worker. While the disease had ruined the family savings it had also affected her ability to work. The story of Minu assumes significance considering the fact that India has set a deadline of 2025 to end TB.
As a signatory to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), India is committed to meeting the 2025 deadline of ending TB, five years ahead of the SDG deadline of 2030. The statistics of the TB, however, indicate that Assam is unlikely to meet the deadline of ending the TB by 2025.
"The tea gardens in Assam are a major challenge for ending TB in Assam. There are about 800 large and medium-sized tea gardens in Assam and 60 to 80 per cent of the TB patients in Assam are from the tea garden areas alone. The tea garden workers are still not aware of the TB infection and its seriousness," said State TB Officer and Joint Director Health (TB) Abhijit Basu.
"Most of the tea garden workers do not even go to the doctor for health issues, rather they go to pharmacies for medicines without doctors' advice. There are also challenges in working in tea garden areas and spreading awareness. Although the government had taken several programmes to make these tea garden populations aware of the health care facilities and include them in health care services, it is yet to deliver the desired results," added Basu.
He said that the doctors do not want to stay in tea garden areas for long which affected the delivery of services to the population. He, however, said that the situation has improved at present compared to the past.