Patients from Supebada are regularly referred to raipur for treatment

RAIPUR: Still wrestling with a spate of kidney ailments, Supebeda village in Gariaband district lost another young life after prolonged suffering from renal ailment late on Monday, taking the death toll to 69 in a span of two-and-half years, even as hundreds of patients were diagnosed with kidney-related problems.

Amid previous BJP government’s tall claims of resolving the issue fell on the wayside, chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on his visit to the village as Congress chief in June last year, had promised the villagers of compensation and jobs to bereaved families, saying that he would take up the matter before the then government. Now, the village population is in the hope that the newly formed Congress government would take the issue more seriously.

Ahilya Netam of this ill-fated village breathed after suffering since the last one-and-half years because of a kidney ailment. Due to lack of proper treatment in the backward district, Ahilya was taken to various health centres in neighbouring Odisha but she could not be saved.

Ahilya’s family members said that she was also suffering from tuberculosis and died a slow and painful death, while as per government records, her name was also enlisted in the register of “renal patients”. The actual reason of her death is yet to be known.

A special unit was set up for patients from Supebeda at Dr BR Ambedkar Hospital in Raipur by the Raman Singh government, but villagers said not many patients could avail the treatment. They retorted that it was not possible to travel 250 kilometres for dialysis thrice in a week or sometimes on alternate days. They said they were too weak to travel the distance nor did they have money to bear the l expenses.

Moreover, the villagers said that getting admission and treatment at the specialized unit was another struggle for them and they chose to go Odisha, but lack of funds for treatment and continuing consumption of the village water led to Ahilya’s death.

Feeling despondent, the villagers in Supebeda say they are cursed by the ‘water God’ because the devil lies in the water and many even refuse to feel thirsty out of fear.

Senior officers in the present Congress government said that the issue was being taken seriously and they are planning for a concrete solution to the problem in Supebeda. In the last two years, several surveys were done in the region both by local and Central teams, but either the reports were awaited or withheld or they failed to find the root cause of the ailment.

Research teams from Raipur and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, have visited Supebeda in the past and found that the water and soil of the village contain harmful metals, which are unfit for human consumption.

While the exact reason for the spate in kidney ailments was yet to be concluded, levels of chromium , zinc and cadmium were found to be much higher than normal, which is fatal, the reports stated.

Supebeda is located in a remote part of Gariaband district and is dominated by the tribal population.

