Nothing is going to stop Babita from caring for her TB patients – not the lockdown, not staff shortages, not police barricades, nor even a shortage of the drugs they need daily to beat this potentially fatal disease.
Babita runs Calcutta Rescue’s TB clinic near Belgachia slum, a red zone hotspot of COVID-19 cases, and where lots of her patients live.
“TB patients are vulnerable due to weakened immunity. And we have some young patients aged between 13-15. We must provide them with their medicine on time if we want them to be in good health. ” Babita said.
Just before the lockdown in March, Babita called all her patients to the clinic and gave them two month’s worth of medicine. Then in mid April Babita delivered more medicine to all 43 patients in Belgachia slum area. She only had one staff member, Naresh, as Farhat is on maternity leave. So Babita stayed at the clinic overnight night so she could get everyone resupplied in three days.
She called patients to come to the clinic but some local people were concerned about people coming into their area from the red zone in Belgachia slum.She said “I closed the clinic and went to the slum area with my colleague with our CR vehicle. The area that was barricaded, the family members of the patients stood on one side of the barricade and we delivered the medicines to them from the other side.
“Police who were guarding the place helped us a lot to deliver the medicines. We supplied 35 patients from the slum area during three days. Every patient has a month’s worth of medicines.”
The reopened again on 1 May to provide medicines for five MDR (multi drug resistant ), including a new patient.
Every day Babita stays in touch with her patients by phone. “Some of our patients also have diabetes, and heart diseases along with TB. Some are coughing up blood and need help. We have to keep in touch with them continuously.” Due to the lockdown, the supply of TB drugs has dwindled. “Many suppliers are not able to give us the medicines. Sometimes we have to buy them from the open market and even then the supply is lower. Needless to say the costs are skyrocketing.” Babita said.
The clinic is supposedly due to open again on the third week of May. And Babita is determined to ensure that once all her patients will get their medicine, whatever hurdles she has to overcome.
Calcutta Rescue caters to more than 1400 patients and more than 600 children from extremely vulnerable bustee areas.
In this lockdown period, Calcutta Rescue is continuously supporting them with food and live-saving medicines and we plan to keep doing that until the lockdown ends.