Kerala: Kin of Nipah victims ostracised

Kozhikode: The Kerala State Human Rights Commission has  sought a report from the district police chief and the district medical officer on the “discrimination” being faced by the health staff who nursed the Nipah victims. The commission has also asked the authorities to take steps to end such discrimination. Many staff at the Perambra taluk hospital, where some patients were treated contracted the disease. The virus also claimed the life of nurse Liny Puthussery of the hospital on May 21.

The hospital staff have  complained of being ostracised. They submitted  a complaint to Kozh-ikode district medical authorities saying that they were not being allowed to travel in buses and that autorickshaws refuse to take them to their workplace. “If we get into buses, the people refuse to share seats. Autorickshaws decline to take us,” they  said. There were even instances when bus passengers protested and got down when the nurses of the hospital boarded the vehicle.

The family members of  Rajan  who died of Nipah virus have  complained that they were  being ostracised by the people. The family  which   lives in extreme poverty in a  decrepit house at Kurachundu Vadachira claimed that the health department officials had left a plastic bag containing masks and gloves outside their house.             

Rajan’s wife  Sindhu,   who  is  gradually coming to terms with their loss,  asked, “Why are we being ostracised? What wrong did we do?”  Apart from Sindhu, Rajan has left his two young daughters Sandra and Swathi and his mother Narayani. The family is not in touch with the outside world.  “We are totally cut off. No one is coming to comfort us,” another relative said. Several members of other families affected by the rare virus have also complained of being isolated.

It was reported   that the electric crematorium staff  refused to perform the last rites of a Nipah-affected person. However, Sajeesh,  husband of Liny,  said health department officials were in touch with them on a daily basis.  Liny had initially treated the members of the Moosa family of Soopykada village, whose four members died of the virus. Sajeesh said that blood samples of 15 members of Liny's family were taken soon after her death. The results were  awaited, he said.

"We have asked our relatives and neighbours not to come now. There are a number  of them here and we are being looked after well," he said. His two children, aged two and four years,  enquire about their mother. They have not been told that she would never come back, he said. Sajeesh, who works in Bahrain, had rushed  home  after hearing about her condition.  He  said he cannot go back to Bahrain now as he wanted to look after his two children.  The Kerala government has offered him a job and financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh each to the two children.