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The Indian Express •

Relatives of students who died ‘due to ragging’ look for closure: ‘Doors are open, hoping my son will come home’

A mother in Assam who came to know that her son’s body had signs of a gunshot wound and a stab injury on the neck; a father in UP who gave up hope after pursuing his daughter’s death for three years; an elder brother in Telangana who remains hopeful that justice will be delivered.These are the searing stories that bring to life the number 78 — the count of students who died on campus allegedly due to ragging, between 2012 and 2023, according to data from the University Grants Commission (UGC) th...
The Indian Express •

Ragging deaths: Complaints spike, system stuck in grey zone, Supreme Court guidelines on paper

🔴 The video shows a boy on a cot with his hands and legs tied. A group of other boys is seen jabbing him with a sharp object, laughing while doing so, while the victim is heard crying. This clip is now the focus of a Kerala police investigation into an alleged case of ragging at a government nursing college in Kottayam — the latest reminder of a menace that continues to haunt the hallways of educational institutions across the country.Supreme Court guidelines to eradicate ragging from 15 years a...
British Medical Journal •

India’s organ transplant paradox: women donate the most and receive the least

Women in India donate nearly twice as many organs as men, yet men are more likely to be recipients. Rupsa Chakraborty asks why
The National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (Notto), India’s apex government body overseeing organ donations, says that 63.8% of all living organ donors from 2019 to 2023—mostly liver and kidneys—were women. Yet men received the majority of donated organs, accounting for 69.8% of the recipients.
A BMJ analysis of the data reveals deep rooted gender inequalities pervading India’s health systems and societal attitudes to women’s health. The underlying causes of this paradox include sociocultural factors, economic dependence, and healthcare attitudes and practices, requiring a holistic approach.
The Indian Express •

Maharashtra struggles with high sickle cell anemia cases over insufficient health infra

Maharashtra, India’s wealthiest state, grapples with the challenge of being the third-highest in sickle cell anemia (SCA) cases, predominantly affecting the tribal population. Despite efforts to eliminate the disease by 2047, the state contends with insufficient health infrastructure. Across 26 districts where the blood disorder prevails, patients find themselves in dire need of treatment, facing the risk of deformities as well as it being a threat to their lives.On Rare Disease Day, The Indian...
The Indian Express •

‘First’ patient free of cancer: Indigenous CAR-T cell therapy brings treatment cost down from Rs 4 crore to Rs 40 lakh

A year ago, if someone had told Dr (Col) V K Gupta, 64, that he would not just be declared “free of cancer cells” — despite a failed bone marrow transplant in 2022 — but would be able to get back to work in 2024, he would have brushed it off as polite optimism.Months after India’s drug regulator approved the commercial use of CAR-T cell therapy, a pioneering treatment that genetically reprogrammes a patient’s immune system to fight cancer, Gupta, a Delhi-based gastroenterologist, became one of t...
The Indian Express •

Only 20 out of 107 rare disease patients at KEM hospital avail of Centre’s grant for treatment

The financial assistance provided by the Centre to treat patients with rare diseases at KEM Hospital in Mumbai has proven insufficient as only 20 of 107 such patients at the hospital have been treated so far with the grant amount, leaving others waiting for months without the necessary treatment.The KEM hospital has received a grant sanction of Rs 5 crore under the National Policy for Rare Diseases (NPRD). But so far, the hospital, designated as a Centre of Excellence (COE), has received Rs 3.9...
The Indian Express •

Being Nidhi’s parents: A 24-year journey of joy and struggles with India’s ‘first’ Pompe disease patient

As they held their newborn daughter in Karnataka’s Hubli, nearly 400 km from Bengaluru, Prasanna Shirol and his wife Sharda felt a fierce outpouring of love, something that would see them through the turbulent 24 years that would follow.“Nidhi had recurrent bouts of pneumonia after she turned six months old. There were developmental delays… she never crawled like other children. Doctors suspected glycogen (the stored form of glucose) storage disease, but there was no diagnosis. Seven years and 4...
The Indian Express •

Being Nidhi’s parents: A 24-year journey of joy and struggles with India’s ‘first’ Pompe disease patient

As they held their newborn daughter in Karnataka’s Hubli, nearly 400 km from Bengaluru, Prasanna Shirol and his wife Sharda felt a fierce outpouring of love, something that would see them through the turbulent 24 years that would follow.“Nidhi had recurrent bouts of pneumonia after she turned six months old. There were developmental delays… she never crawled like other children. Doctors suspected glycogen (the stored form of glucose) storage disease, but there was no diagnosis. Seven years and 4...
The Indian Express •

Failing them again: Beds remain empty as one-stop centres for rape survivors under Nirbhaya Fund remain crippled with low referral, official apathy

A decade after the December 16, 2012, Delhi gang rape incident that shook the nation, the One-Stop-Centres (OSC) or ‘Sakhi’ centres, established with the Nirbhaya Fund set up by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) to support women affected by violence, have failed to take off. An investigation revealed several challenges, including a lack of awareness, infrastructure, lack of coordination between departments, police apathy and hesitancy among women. At the nation’s financial...
The Indian Express •

Diabetic deaths in state surged 52 per cent amid Covid pandemic: RTI

Bakkaya Malaya Ippa, a tribal from Gadchiroli district, passed away in 2021, within days of contracting Covid. Doctors said his health condition deteriorated rapidly mostly because of his comorbidity — diabetes mellitus.Bakkaya, however, was not the only diabetic patient who became a victim of a wide range of post-acute sequelae of Covid-19. An RTI application filed by The Indian Express showed that Maharashtra witnessed a 52 per cent surge in “medically certified deaths” caused by diabetes in 2...
The Indian Express •

Despite help from Centre, patients with rare diseases, kin continue to suffer

Forced to drop out of school, Fakir Siraj Ali’s five-year-old son spends most of his days in bed. In 2021, when the country was in the grip of the second wave of Covid-19, the boy started having seizures, lost his appetite, and started feeling fatigued and bruising easily. Fakir rushed from one hospital to another in his native village, Panpur in Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district, but local doctors failed to diagnose the boy. After almost two months of struggle and spending over Rs 40,000 on diagno...
The Indian Express •

Nandurbar: Several schemes on paper for women, but benefits yet to reach thousands

Along the backwaters of Narmada river, 25-year-old Tagali Laldas Pawara resides in Khadkya village, located in Akrani taluka of Nandurbar district, just 10 km from the Gujarat border. Last July, she delivered her second child at home. But even before the anemic Tagali could recover, within a month of her delivery, she had to join her husband in Gujarat to earn a livelihood in a sugarcane farm. Soon, the infant who was left behind with her in-laws developed pneumonia and succumbed to it on August...
The Indian Express •

Maharashtra: One-third of all deaths in 2021 during Delta Covid surge

In Calendar year 2021, when hospitals across India were battling the delta wave of Covid-19, Maharashtra recorded a significant 20.47 per cent increase in all-cause deaths to 9.74 lakh as compared to the previous year. This was over and above the 16.57 per cent rise in all-cause deaths in calendar year 2020. Maharashtra accounted for almost 10 per cent of all-cause deaths across India in 2020.Four key insights emerge from an analysis of data obtained by The Indian Express from the state’s Civil...