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Bagaha : Remote villages under Bagaha sub-division in West Champaran district still lack medicare facilities leaving the villagers with no option than to visit quacks whose number has increased manifold during the past few years. In the name of treating patients, these quacks are making fast buck. With majority of government doctors abstaining themselves from duty in remote area, the people visit quacks when required.
A visit to different of villages under Bagaha sub- division revealed how these quacks have established themselves in almost every village. One finds many medical ‘shops’ flourishing with two to three quacks ready to treat patients. They are, in fact, helpers of senior doctors in the cities but work as fullfledged doctors in rural areas. Another category of doctors called the mobile doctors (Jhola chhap doctors), who carry with them a few medicine used for treatment of different diseases, injections and a stethoscope. Ultrasonography centres run without radiologists. Many quacks have displayed signboards describing themselves as pathologists but hold no valid degree. These quacks have good links with private nursing homes running in the cities and act as their agents for sending patients to them for which they get a monthly salary or work on commission basis.
A quack of Shripatinagar in Semara- Labdeha panchayat under Piparasi block allegedly runs a nursing home for the last one year from a district board community building allegedly with the help of some local cops and officials and conducts even caesarean section operations in delivery cases in the absence of gynaecologist. The quacks prescribe medicine for all diseases. Two such panchayats : Nauragia Dun and Banakatwa -Karamahiya under Ramnagar block, are located in Valmikinagar Tiger Reserve, where government doctors are seen only during visit of any district or higher official. ” People are left to the mercy of `Ojhas’ and `Jhola chhap doctors’ (quacks),” said vice president of Tharu Welfare Federation of West Champaran Ramkrisan Kazi on March 14, 2017.
The child of a pregnant woman Anita Devi, 22, wife of Sahadeo Ram of village Pirari under Mainatand police station, died during caesarean operation by a quack on March 10. The woman also died four days after the operation. When her in-laws, relatives and locals raised hue and cry, Mainatand police swung into action and sent the body for autopsy to MJK hospital, Bettiah.