Welfare steps aid his entry into MBBS

Govt move to make clotting factors free comes as relief to 19-year-old haemophiliac

C.S. Sabarinath

For C.S. Sabarinath, who is all set to join the MBBS course at Government Medical College, Alappuzha, it is nothing short of a dream come true. A haemophiliac, the 19-year-old Punnapra native had missed out on a lot of classes and had not thought he would clear the entrance examination.

Haemophilia is a genetic blood disorder in which patients do not have the clotting factor. The only cure is to replenish the blood with the clotting factor.

When the government made clotting factors available free of cost for all haemophilia patients four years ago, it was a huge relief for Sabarinath and his parents Chembakasseri Sreekumar and Darshana.

Until then, all their resources were spent on getting the clotting factor, which was not only extremely costly, but also not easily available. Sabarinath was diagnosed with haemophilia when he was just nine months old. Mr. Sreekumar runs a small grocery store and his wife is a homemaker.

Many classes missed

Sabarinath had scored 96% in CBSE Class X examination as a student of St. Aloysius Senior Secondary School, Punapra.

But next year, a minor fall from a cycle made his condition worse and kept him under the continual care of the Haemophilia Centre at the Aluva District Hospital.

He could hardly attend classes at the Aravukad Higher Secondary School from where he passed Plus Two with 72% marks in 2017.

“I had lost out on many months of classes in Plus One, which got me a low score that year. I had developed a knee clot with internal bleeding that kept me away from school for long,” said Sabarinath.

The student had taken a crash course for entrance examination when he passed Plus Two, but later joined a course in computer application and attempted the entrance examination this year again, studying on his own.

Sabarinath would study in between painful spasms, said Mr. Sreekumar. “Usually, it takes about three days to recover from the cramps of internal bleeding. But with prophylactic doses of the factor available now, management of haemophilia is much better,” said Sabarinath.