Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad   

Even grandma's remedy could save lives!

By K. Srinivas Reddy

HYDERABAD Jan. 5. These remedies may not be foolproof, but they could save lives.

Be it the grandma's remedy of forcibly inducing a vomit or a more scientific way of intravenously pumping the commonly available drugs Atrophine and Pam, a good percentage of over 700 lives could have been saved in Karimnagar district last year, if only these remedies were put to use.

The drought-prone district now got the dubious distinction of recording as many as 1221 suicides in 2002. About 700 persons took the option of taking poison.

While the reasons for taking the extreme step could be financial or personal, an inescapable conclusion is that most of those consuming poison could be saved by providing proper medicare without delay after the suicide attempt is noticed. On an average, medical experts and police say, immediate relatives or villagers notice the suicide attempt within an hour of someone taking poison and it would take a minimum of two hours for them to reach a nearby hospital where proper medical attention is given. But by that time, the ingested poison, mostly Organo Phosphate due to free availability of a variety of pesticides, would have been absorbed and an irreparable damage would have already been done.

Medical experts say immediate intravenous administering of Atropine and Pam drugs would save the life to a large extent. But the medical practitioners at villages and towns do not dare such move, since should anything go wrong, he would be squarely blamed. The grandma remedies like forcibly inducing a vomit by inserting fingers into throat, forcing the victim to drinking water mixed with salt and lemon could have some effect, but not many are aware of these simple techniques.

The abnormal number of suicides in Karimnagar has been puzzling the police officers too. While Karimnagar recorded 1220 suicides last year, its neighbouring district Nizamabad recorded 457 suicides, while another neighbour, Warangal, registered 903 suicides. Needless to say, in these districts too suicide by poisoning is the most prevalent method.

Another disturbing factor that emerges out of police statistics is that nearly 70 per cent of the suicide cases fall in the productive age of 15 to 44 years in both males and females (nearly 40 per cent in 15 to 29 years age group). Nineteen persons ended their lives on being either diagnosed as contracting the deadly AIDS or on mere suspicion of suffering from AIDS in Karimnagar. ``A study on sociological and psychological aspects has to be done to find out why suicides are occurring on such a scale,'' the Karimnagar SP, R.S. Praveen Kumar, feels. If only villagers are educated on what to do in case someone takes poison, many lives could be saved. In addition to this measure, proper grievance redress mechanism supported by a helpline feature could to some extent reduce the increasing suicidal tendencies, officials say.

An interesting pattern that's emerging in the coal belt area of Godavarikhani is the increasing consumption of hair dyes to commit suicides. "More than 70 cases of hair dye consumption have occurred in Godavarikhani and surrounding areas,'' says V. Vijayabhaskar of Surya Hospital in Godavarikhani. Though it's not immediately known why the hair dyes are poisonous, a distinct feature noticed in such cases is that there would be severe damage to kidneys and occurrence of respiratory distress.

``The respiratory distress due to damage in trachea is so much that we invariably put the patient on artificial ventilatory support and pump in lot of steroids to avoid damage to internal organs,'' Dr. Vijayabhaskar points out. The easy availability of hair dyes could be one of the reasons for its increasing consumption. Dr. Vijayabhaskar who periodically conducts seminars on subjects like "Mental Stress and Suicides'' in the coal town, argues that a coordinated effort should be made by all agencies to identify the root causes for this tendency and initiate check mechanism.

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