THE UNDERLYING TALES
Stories from my journey as a Travel fellow
Village visits and follow-ups of the patients are given primary importance in KCPatty CF primary health center, which is situated in the hills of Kodaikanal.
It was my initial days at KC Patty as a travel fellow.
A regular Monday with morning OP and afternoon village visits. Before going to the village, we check the follow-up register of that village in which the names and details of the patients who need the follow-up will be written. Dr. Raj Kumar briefed the patients to be seen. In that list, he told about a 7-year-old boy who was diagnosed with Juvenile cataract(cataracts seen in children). A few years ago he was diagnosed with cataract in one eye and surgery was done in a hospital in Kodaikanal after much counselling of his parents. Later cataract were diagnosed in the other eye. Sent them again to the same hospital. The child’s father took the boy to the hospital 3-4 times, but the surgery didn’t happen. The reason was initially child couldn’t get anaesthetic fitness due to some upper respiratory tract infection and later when surgery was about to happen the father would bring back the child to home. Health workers of KC Patty Clinic made many attempts to convince the parents about the importance of surgery to prevent the child from going blind. Those all failed. Even if they were able to convince the parents to take the child to the hospital, the father would take the child back home at some point before surgery. No one was able to find the real reason.
On that day of the village visit, we decided to visit their home as a last attempt to get the boy’s vision back. I felt sad about the child who was going to be blind just because of his parents' ignorance or any other unknown reason. We went to the child’s home. But there was no one. Neighbors told us that they were in a local healer’s house and we also got to know that the boy’s father had not been going to work for a while. They also said that he was neither coming out of the house nor talking to others as before. We were curious. We walked to the local healer’s house. We could meet the boy and his father. There was something strange with the father that I didn’t expect. He was not talking much. Dr. Raj Kumar sat and talked with him for some time and examined him. He was afraid even to go out of the house and feared something bad would happen to him and his family. After a detailed history, Dr.Raj found out that the father was suffering from anxiety disorder which was affecting his day-to-day activities and even the life of his child. That was the whole reason for his behavior in refusing his boy’s eye surgery. He had the fear that something bad would happen. Thus the whole mystery was revealed. Later he was called to the clinic and started on antianxiety medications. After tackling the father’s anxiety issues, the child’s eye surgery was successfully done later.
The child would have lost his sight if we ignored the issue by blaming the parents for their ignorance. All were focused on the boy’s health and his father’s mental health issue ( which has a significant impact on the child’s future ) went unnoticed. I was surprised to see the unveiling of the real situation of the patient and his family through home visits, which are mostly hidden in an OPD visit. Sometimes we label the person who sits in front of us in OPD with some symptoms/diagnosis and then treat, missing many things in that process which may hinder the real solutions.
Approaching a patient as a whole human and a social being, with all the limitations and possibilities is a rare skill, which I saw in KC Patty, And how a family physician can make remarkable developments in health in an area through primary care was an eye-opening experience for me.
