A nine-year-old snakebite victim in Nadia had to run from one government facility to another, only to be told there was no ventilator or bed, and was “on the verge of respiratory arrest” when he was admitted to a private hospital 170km away in Calcutta.
This was more than 10 hours after the boy had suffered the snakebite.
The ordeal of Somdeep Halder and his parents — a day labourer and his homemaker wife — on Independence Day has held up a mirror to the state of healthcare
in Bengal.
Somdeep, a resident of Khosalpur village in Kaliganj, Nadia, is now stable at the private hospital, a doctor said.
The hospital bill till Monday was nearly ₹2 lakh and the boy’s father, Dipankar Halder, said he was borrowing money from neighbours and relatives.
Somdeep had stepped out late at night on August 14 and appears to have been bitten by the snake near a water body, his mother Sushama said.
“Around 2am on Friday, he complained of severe abdominal pain,” she said.
The parents took him to a village quack, who gave him an antacid and a medicine to reduce the pain. It didn’t help, and the boy was taken to a nearby doctor who recommended hospitalisation.
“We took him to a small government healthcare unit at Bethuadahari. There, the doctors administered a medicine but that did not reduce the pain,” Sushama said.
“He began vomiting; so the doctors ran some blood tests.”
The tests revealed snake venom and the boy was referred to Krishnanagar Sadar District Hospital, the mother said.
“At the Krishnanagar hospital, doctors administered anti-venom but my son’s condition kept worsening. The doctors said he would need a ventilator, which was not available there,” Sushama said.
Somdeep was referred to NRS Medical College and Hospital in Calcutta.
The family brought Somdeep to the city in an ambulance, the fare coming to nearly ₹6,000. Sushama said the boy was barely conscious when they reached Calcutta, having suffered bouts of seizure during the four-hour journey.
At NRS, they were told that no ventilator was available. “We were told the only option was to admit the child on the floor. But given his condition, we could not admit him there,” Nirmal Halder, a relative who had accompanied the boy and his parents, said.
“I was once treated at Peerless Hospital and so we took him there.”
At Peerless, Somdeep was put on a ventilator and administered several doses of anti-venom.
The boy had a neurotoxic venom in his blood, said Sanjukta De, clinical director, department of paediatrics, at Peerless.
Snake venom can be neurotoxic or haemotoxic. Neurotoxic venom affects the nervous system, causing paralysis, while haemotoxic venom affects the circulatory system, leading to blood clotting and tissue damage.
“He was gasping and was on the verge of respiratory arrest when he was brought to the hospital,” De said.
De added: “The respiratory muscles were not functioning, and the diaphragm wasparalysed because of theneurotoxic venom. He was going into respiratory arrest because the muscles wereparalysed.”
Apart from the multiple doses of anti-venom, Somdeep was administered atropine and neostigmine, De said. He was on ventilation support for 24 hours. On Monday, he was stable, De said.
“I earn around ₹9,000 a month and have no land to sell. I’m borrowing money from relatives and neighbours,” Dipankar said.
A health department official said there were several ventilators at NRS and the Krishnanagar Sadar District Hospital.
“We will find out why the boy had to be taken to a private hospital when there are ventilators at government hospitals,” the official said.