From far-away Jharkhand comes some good news:
Our intrepid colleague Dr. Cherring Tenzing has been faithfully serving for the last 9 years with other heroes at Nav Jivan Hospital.
Cherring reports that she and her colleagues very rarely see multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in their busy TB unit. That is amazing news. A decade ago we were supposedly one of the best TB hospitals around - but our in-house research showed that only 17% of our patients were documented to have completed their treatment.
Today we see how much can be done by dedicated people. In an area wracked with tension from the on-going Naxal struggle, where power-cuts are oh-so-common, where almost everyone who can leave - does - in that place a small committed band has brought a quiet revolution in health care. Simple, comprehensive TB control has taken place - and the proof is in the pudding of not having the rampant multi-drug resistance that we see in our so-called 'sophisticated urban areas' like here in Thane.
Hats off to Cherring and her merry band of workers! To Drs. Arpit, Jeevan, Augustine - and all the educators and lab techs - and treatment supervisors and most of all - all the patients who faithfully went through the challenges of 6 or 8 months of treatment! Behind the success have been much sweat and tears - but how proud we are of you.
From a very small beginning, they have grown the programme to where the Nav Jivan Hospital is now the main TB unit supporting all the government TB control work in the whole of the Latehar district!
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