Fearing social stigma, kin cover up cause of death

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 26

The government has no official data on drug-related deaths in the state, mainly because the bereaved families often prefer to keep things under wraps.

Health Minister Brahm Mohindra said here on Tuesday that not many such cases were reported in hospitals as the families considered it a social stigma.

“No parent wants to live with this fact and get any such data entered in government records. So, we will not be able to draw the related facts and inferences,” conceded the minister. He drew satisfaction from the fact that the retention rate of the addict patients for revisits to take medicines stood at 86 per cent in the state.

Dr Surinder Paul, who runs a private hospital at a village in Mahilpur, says: “The incidents of drug-related deaths remain high in this region, but we cannot report the same as the affected families do not want to be identified. They are not ready to accept the harsh reality even after the death of a family member.”

Retired government schoolteacher Gurdev Singh of Jainpur village in Balachaur had lost his son Amandeep alias Deepu (23) to drugs more than two years ago. But neither he nor his wife Manjit Kaur wanted to mention the cause. “We lost him perhaps because of our ignorance and unflinching trust in him,” is what they say at the most.

Most such deaths get reported as cases of heart attack or snakebite, says Dr Amarjit Thind, a SAD leader and a physician. “The families avoid discussing drug problem of their kin. They would tell people in the neighbourhood that their family member died in sleep and might have suffered a heart attack. Even at Bute Dian Chhannan village in Shahkot, which is notorious for drug supplies, most families do not reveal the actual reason of death. But I know how serious the situation is. The number of HIV positive cases is also quite high in this belt because of exchange of used syringes,” he says.

The Tribune had earlier reported that when Nawanshahr-based RTI activist Parvinder Singh Kitna had filed an RTI seeking details of deaths of persons aged between 15 and 40 in Mukandpur block of the district from 2011-15, as many as 224 deaths had been attributed to heart attacks and only five to drug addiction. Nearly 90 victims of heart attack were aged less than 30 years, with some of them even 16-18. The heart attack victims also included 44 girls or young women.

Having personally known some of the affected families, Kitna had termed it a cover-up exercise either on the part of the families or the health officials owing to social taboo associated with the menace. "I doubt that there can be 224 heart attack deaths of so many young people in just one block of a district in five years. Even if it was true, the health authorities should have probed as to why heart ailments are killing so many young people here," he had demanded.

Jalandhar Congress MP Chaudhary Santokh Singh said as many as 26 youths had died because of drug intake at Bilga village of Jalandhar in the past few years. "These are deaths that were reported. The actual number may be high as most parents are not upfront even after the loss of their children," he said.