Two persons of a family of Badibahal village under Sinapali block of Nuapada district died of diarrhoea on Thursday morning. When Pushpa Raut, a 10-year-old girl, died on the way to the CHC (Community Health Centre) at Khariar, 60-year-old Budhi Raut died in the CHC while under treatment.
Seven persons, including four children, are now under treatment in the CHC and another child aged 10 was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital at Nuapada. All these people belong to the same family of the village.
“The cause of diarrhoea might have been drinking of contaminated water,” said Dr KC Achary, Medical Officer of Khariar CHC. But the family members are not able to ascertain why the members of one particular family were only affected when more than 1,000 people are using the same water source of the village for drinking, he wondered.
The village was observing a Yajna for last two days and more than 1,000 people gathered at the place eating in a common mess and using the water of a tube-well in the village. Raut was the Karta of the Yajna and was affected first at about 8 am on
Wednesday morning. Diarrhoea spread to other members of the family and the situation became serious in the evening.
All the family members were admitted to the CHC of Sinapali at about 9 pm and they were then referred to Khariar early in the morning when their conditions became critical.
“It (the Yajna) was a large gathering, but there was no one to look at the health and sanitation aspect,” said the villagers. “When the villagers informed the police and other Government officials about such functions, it was the responsibility of the administration to look at the health and sanitation aspect,” added the villagers.
The villagers complain that the mobile health unit of the Sinapali CHC is now dysfunctional. “We have never seen the van in villages,” rued the villagers. “It is astonishing that the CHC at Sinapali most of the time refers the cases to the Khariar CHC although they are no less equipped with infrastructures and personnel than the Khariar CHC to deal with such cases,” said a medical staff of the Khariar CHC.