Village residents ignorant of advanced govt medical facilities

Tejinder Pal Singh, aged 15, of Sultanwind village could have suffered a disability had he continued to seek treatment from a quack in his village for an injury he had got after a fall.

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Tejinder was riding a bicycle, when he was hit by a mobike. For three months, his family continued to follow the advice of the quack, till a relative realised that the elbow of the injured arm was beginning to tilt.

Under the guidance of the relative, employed in a pharma outlet, Tejinder’s parents took him to government-run Guru Nanak Hospital. He was operated successfully on January 21. A Class X student, Tejinder said following the operation, he recovered fast and he would now appear in the examination starting March 10. Similar is the case of eight-year-old Rajan of the Naraingarh area who was operated upon about one and a half months ago. He suffered a fracture in one hand about four months ago. Instead of taking their son to a qualified orthopaedist, his parents preferred to seek treatment from a “malishwalla” near their house.

Ignoring the availability of advanced medical facilities and highly qualified and experienced medicos, several families are in distress after they prefer to go to quacks and “malishwallas”.

The orthopaedic department at Guru Nanak Hospital is coming to the rescue of such patients, with their specialisation in treating old neglected fractures with associated multiple problems.

Dr Rajesh Kapila, Professor and Head, Department of Orthopaedics, Guru Nanak Dev Hospital-cum-Government Medical College, who has been serving for the past over 28 years, said out of the total patients, about 20 per cent cases were of neglected surgeries. These surgeries are called neglected as they ignore its treatment for long time, causing the matter to complicate and compromise functional results. In rare cases, doctors even have to amputate the injured body part as a last resort. Around 1,100 patients were treated by the department last year. Out of these, 270 were neglected cases.

The high rate of neglected and revision surgeries in this age of swift information dissemination is baffling medical experts. The cases of neglected trauma, in which patients with fractures are treated by quacks, turn up to take treatment from orthopaedists here. Dr Kaila, who has expertise in joint replacement, especially revision surgeries, has a rich experience in treating neglected trauma cases.