Clinic struggles to fight TB among tribals
Of the 1,140 patients over the last five years who sought treatment at the clinic, about 400, or 35 percent recovered, according to clinic records.
A Daughters of the Cross nun explains tuberculosis to villagers at St. Robert Clinic For the past 25 years, a Church-run clinic in Sindh province has been trying its best to treat tribal people suffering from tuberculosis (TB).
Recently, the St. Robert Clinic, located at the St. Thomas Church in Badin, marked its silver jubilee by holding a TB awareness program together with Caritas Pakistan Hyderabad.
About 80 people attended the March 26 event which also featured a play by Catholic youths showing Church workers giving health tips to TB patients.
“Most people believe there is no cure for TB,” one Caritas worker told UCA News. “We are trying to instill hope.”
According to Daughters of the Cross Sister Theresa Emmanuel, who is in charge of the clinic’s TB program, most of the TB patients in the area are tribal people working as laborers on farms.
“The land owners provide them with an inadequate diet and minimal wages. Utter poverty and unhygienic life styles are mainly responsible for making this disease a fatal epidemic in interior Sindh province,” she said.
Of the 1,140 patients over the last five years who sought treatment at the clinic, about 400, or 35 percent recovered, according to clinic records.
The Daughters of the Cross nuns run the clinic, which was started in 1985 by the Missionary Society of St. Columban.
Presently two nuns, a Columban lay missioner, two doctors and a technician make up the staff. Patients are charged 30 rupees (US$0.36) per visit except for needy cases.
Pakistan high on world TB list
According to the provincial TB Control Program, Pakistan has the sixth highest number of TB patients in the world with 300,000 new cases every year. These include approximately 72,000 cases in Sindh province alone.
Pakistan medical reports estimate that around 260,000 people in the country die from the disease annually.
They included the mother of a Franciscan brother, who later decided to join the Church drive against TB. Brother Wilfred is presently running a mobile clinic as a part of his outreach program in Matli, about 80 kilometers from Badin.
“The local farmers keep moving from place to place and thus cannot complete the long term medication course,” he told UCA News, adding that his four-member team treats 250 patients monthly.
“After initial checkups, we refer them to the clinic in St. Thomas Church where tests are conducted and medicine is distributed every Friday.”
One patient who completed her eight-month course of medication, said she is grateful to clinic staff for “encouraging” her when she found it tiresome to continue taking medicine.
They even “arranged to pick me up … so that I could continue the checkups,” said Khatija Sato, a Muslim woman.
Source: Clinic struggles to fight TB among tribals (UCAN)
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