Apart from diabetes and high blood pressure, heart diseases are being noticed among Adivasis of former united Adilabad district. A case which came to notice about seven months ago and has since become a cause of mental agony for the aboriginal people of Dharloddi Punaguda hamlet in Adilabad rural mandal is the congenital heart problem of Gedam Dattu, a 10-year-old Gond Adivasi.
First surgery
The boy underwent Balloon Aortal Valvotomy (BAV), an operation to correct the defective aortal valve in his heart, but it has returned to haunt him. The surgery was performed last November and he was advised to undergo a second surgery for replacement of the defective valve.
“We cannot afford it,” said Dattu’s mother, Janabai, adding, “Doctors at the hospital in Hyderabad told us that we have exhausted our one chance to undergo the operation under the Aarogyasri scheme.”
Doctors at Continental Hospitals, Hyderabad, had advised the patient’s family to havet the operation done within three months of the last one, but it did not happen. Senior paediatric cardiologist Kavitha Chintala, who visited the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Adilabad, on July 5 as part of a camp, advised a repeat of the BAV.
“The operation could cost upwards of ₹2.5 lakh,” opined a doctor at RIMS. This has left Dattu’s parents crestfallen.
Dropped out of school
The patient, who dropped out of his school at Chinchughat, has been complaining of breathlessness and pain in the chest. “This indicates he should undergo treatment at the earliest,” the doctor added.
Dattu is now staying with his relatives at Chinchughat, about 14 km from Adilabad town due to ease of access. “His own village is located on a high altitude hill and can be reached by walking through rough terrain for nearly 5 km,” said Adivasi activist Kathle Maruthi of Chinchughat on whose suggestion the boy has temporarily moved out of his home.
