NO MONEY FOR SON’S SURGERY; WAGER OPTS MIGRATION

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Tuesday, 25 August 2015 | AJIT PANDA | NUAPADA | in Raipur

Kusha Punji, a ten-year-old boy of Salemudga village of Balangir district, is lying on a bed in the Evangelical Mission Hospital of Khariar in Nuapada district with a broken leg.The thigh bone of his right leg broke when he fell down from a roof of his school toilet while playing with other boys after school hour. The hospital has charged about `10,000 for the operation and medicine cost which Kusha’s father Bhaja is unable to pay. Bhaja has decided to take the child back to his village.

But, he is not sure what to do with the child after taking him back to his village. “I am a landless. I earn only `60 per day as a farm labourer. How can I pay this much of amount,” asked Bhaja, tears rolling down from his eyes. His wife Gurubari consoled him and said, “Don’t be silly, the boy cries more seeing you weep.”

“We should be ashamed that our health system is unable to provide treatment to a poor child even at the district level,” said Odisha State Youth Congress Committee general secretary Adhiraj Panigrahi, who contributed `4,000 towards the treatment cost of the child.

Gurubari and Bhaja have moved around different hospitals for last three days, pleading before the doctors to treat their child.They first took Kusha to the Community Health Centre at Kantabanji immediately after the incident on Friday evening. The doctors of the CHC referred him to the District Headquarters Hospital at Balangir on the same day. But unfortunately, the doctors there also expressed their inability to treat and referred Kusha to the Burla MCH.

“Burla is an unknown place for us. How can we go there without having a penny?” Gurbari asked, adding, “We brought the boy to this Mission, as the place is very near to our village.”

The couple never thought that the cost of treatment would be in thousands of rupees. Bhaja has already spent `2,000 towards cost of transport from Balangir DHH to Khariar. “I borrowed the money from the village shop keeper at 10 per cent interest per month,” said Bhaja.When asked how he would repay the loan with such an exorbitant interest, he answered, “I have talked to a labour contractor for an advance to work in a brick kiln.”

Bhaja has never migrated to any place in search of work, in spite of his poverty. But the situation has now forced him to take that option as a means to secure the life his child.

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