Dang, July 12: Ram Bahadur Dahit of Tulsipur sub-metropolitan city-7 in Dang district long has been suffering from hemophilia.
Along with him, three of his brothers are also living with this genetic bleeding disorder. Disease apart, what troubles them the most is the unavailability of medicine, especially the life-saving injection.
The patients have no choice but to move for the nearest city Butwal or even up to Kathmandu to avail essential medicine and receive treatment. “We can not avail medicines nearby. Thus, we have to go to Butwal or Kathmandu for it,” they said.
The patients in the locality travel to Butwal once a week to receive the injection. If they start bleeding for any reason, it does not stop. Hence, the patients must get injection to prevent the bleeding.
Since the injection is not on hand locally, travelling afar becomes compulsion for the patients which could result in delay, thereby posing life-threat to the patients.
Sher Bahdur Chaudhary, another hemophilia patient, bemoaned that it was not so easy to acquire injection named ‘Factor’. “We have to go to Butwal to get the Factor but sometimes it’s difficult to reach there either,” he whined.
The Factor injection is expensive. However, Lumbini Province government has begun providing the medicine for free of cost. Nevertheless, the supply is not so smooth.
Chaudhary, one among the six hemophilia patients reported in Tulsipur, Dang, expressed his dissatisfaction that the government was not paying adequate attention towards hemophilia patients like him. He lamented that they have no choice but to hit the road to Bheri Hospital in Banke district and Lumbini Provincial Hospital at Butwal City to obtain the injections.
The local government has been providing financial support to the hemophilia patients annually to manage travel cost for Butwal or Banke.
Mayor of Tulsipur sub-metropolitan city, Tikaram Khadka, shared that the sub-metropolis this fiscal year provided financial assistance of Rs 15,000 to each patient to ease the financial burden.
What is hemophilia?
Hemophilia is a hereditary blood disorder that stops blood from clotting properly.It is caused by a deficiency of specific blood-clotting factors. When a person with hemophilia suffers a cut or minor injury, he/she experiences prolonged bleeding as the blood does not clot properly which could lead to life-threatening situation any time soon.
Om P Neupane, Head of the Public Health Promotion Division at the sub-metropolitan city, said that there is no complete cure for this disease. “The patients with genetic disease must take extra precautions as any serious injury or accident can lead to excessive bleeding,” cautioned Neupane.
Symptoms of hemophilia include blood in urine, bleeding from rectum, deep wounds from minor injuries, bruises in body without no apparent reasons, occasional nasal bleeding, joint paint, irritability in child and blurred vision among others.#nepal #Hemophilia #rss
