Time to
think of education
One of the
sad news I read today was in The Hindu (click
here to read). It talks about why children in rural India die of diarrhoea
and pneumonia based on a JAMA article. It has 2 lessons I believe: 1- how poor
our training of health workers in India and 2- this is for all the therapist-
this is what we mean by burden of illness and priority public health.
One of the
reasons I am writing this blog is a selfish reason but with some value to all
of us. There are very simple methods to prevent diarrhoea related death. The
WHO has given clear guidelines of how to manage these patients but alas the
health workers (including physicians) had very little idea on management principles. The reasons can be laziness of the health
workers, poor training, plain stupidity and lack of empathy for poor.
But I believe
one of the major reasons forgetting what medical professional’s important tool-
education and empowering patients. What it means is the health care workers don’t
want to take the time to make the patient understand the disease, simple
solution they ought to do rather they just prescribe something and hope it will
all go away. (I see similarity in
therapist treatment of pain also but that is for another time). Of course the
study also highlighted the over treatment (just like us PTs) and prescribing
drugs for people who just were not sick.
The sad
part is I don’t see and association of health workers or physicians making a
hue and cry- I can remember when someone told on TV the stupidity of screening
they all were up with arms, but …well fill. I am not going to talk about the 2 issue. (This
is for all the therapist- this is what we mean by burden of illness and
priority public health.)
So what is
the selfish reason-well I am going to give some links to how to treat diarrhoea
from Cochrane and well it is Tamil. Please read it and also spread the message.
- 1. தீவிர வயிற்று போக்கிற்கு (polymer) பலபடி சார்ந்த வாய்வழி அளிக்கப்படும் நீரேற்றல் கரைசல்கள் (ORS)
- 2. குழந்தைகளின் கடுமையான வயிற்றுப் போக்கால் ஏற்படும் நீரிழப்புக்கு வாய்வழி குறைக்கப்பட்ட ஊடமைச் செறிவு (osmolarity) வாய்வழி மீள்நீரூட்டம் (rehydration) சிகிச்சை
- 3. குழந்தைகளில் பேதி சிகிச்சைக்கு வாய்வழி துத்தநாகம் கூடுதல் உட்கொள்ளல்
