Nagaur : The number of children born with heart disease is increasing. Every year about 2.5 lakh such children are born in the country. Their number in Rajasthan is around seven thousand. The special thing is that only about twenty percent of them get immediate treatment. One has to wait for a long time to get free treatment under the National Child Health Program (RBSK). In the last seven months, only four children have been operated for heart related diseases in Nagaur district alone. About half a dozen are standing in this queue. The number of children who have undergone operations in the last nine years has reached 338. Although free operations are being conducted under Chiranjeevi and Ayushman Yojana, the work of identifying these children is slow. Sources say that there are two teams in every block to identify such children and make their cards. Through screening through school/madrasa and Anganwadi, people with heart problem or cleft lip/palate, bent legs, numb ears are identified for treatment. It is said that this work is not as fast as before. This work has been slow since the Corona period. Although those responsible deny this.
During pregnancy, at 20-22 weeks, sonography can detect defects in the heart or body parts of the child. The reasons for this are becoming a mother at an older age, changing lifestyle/food habits, use of unnecessary medicines. According to the guidelines, a pregnant woman should get sonography done after about five months, although very few people get it done. Many congenital disorders are detected only after the child is born. Children suffering from heart disease are being identified and their operations are also being done free of cost. Barring a few hospitals, this work is going on in almost all the big hospitals. However, the children of Nagaur do not have to wait long.
Actually, the operation of children identified from Nagaur takes place in Jaipur only. In SMS and other government hospitals, operations on children below one year of age are not possible. Many big private hospitals are either not connected to government facilities or create so many complications that they are not able to get free operations done under RBSK. This treatment is being provided free of cost at Satyasai Hospital in Rajkot, Gujarat. It is said that the number of children suffering from heart disease is increasing but the resources are now less. At least five hundred institutions/hospitals are needed to perform heart operations on children across the country but there are only sixty-seventy. Lack of awareness is also a big reason, in such a situation about ten percent of children die in a year.
