Children

Ravi Kiran, a cute little 4 year old boy had just moved in to my neighbourhood. It took only a few months to start loving him. Believe me, he was such a talkative boy for his age. One day when I returned from the college tired, my mother who was his best friend was gloomy. Apparently, Ravi was admitted in a private hospital that day morning as he had high grade fever and vomiting. When I called his father to enquire about little Ravi’s health, I was told that Ravi was suffering from “Meningitis”. The next day, when I visited him at the hospital, Ravi was in deep sleep. The poor kid was looking very tired. He was diagnosed with “Tuberculous Meningitis” which meant that the bacterium causing Tuberculosis had decided to injure Ravi’s brain instead of his lungs. The infection of the brain had caused the fever, vomiting, seizures and all the other symptoms. Ravi was discharged after about 2 weeks treatment at the hospital. Ravi had survived a deadly disease, but he wasn’t the same old active and talkative boy that everyone loved. He had lost his hearing sense due to the brain injury caused by the Meningitis and the hearing loss was going to be permanent. The disease had changed the life of a boy at such a young age. His parents were the culprits and they knew it.

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 It was around 11:00 in the morning and I was walking with our team of health workers. The Sun was not kind enough that day and still we had to go to this house which was not accessible by road. I love walking, but not at the middle of the day when the blazing heat becomes unbearable. Sherin, one of our most active Junior Public Health Nurse ( J P H N ) was talking about the grandmother of the 3 children living in the house we were about to visit. According to her, the grandmother was an illiterate and highly religious lady with whom one may find it impossible to win a verbal fighting. I was waiting eagerly to meet the old lady so that I can talk to her and make her understand the importance of Vaccination. After about a 10 minute sweaty walk, when we reached the house, we were greeted by an elderly man who seemed to recognise me as the “Doctor”.  He greeted us into the house and offered us a welcome drink, which I finished off in one long sip. After we were all settled, Sherin told the old man that the purpose of our visit was to vaccinate his young grandchildren. There was a minute of silence in the living room before which the old man cleared his throat and simply said, “we are not interested” !