Mumbai: 4 months since ward restarted, TB hospital has treated just 60 kids

The children’s ward at Sewri TB hospital had been closed for four years for want of a paediatrician; even though treatments have begun in full swing, activist concerned that numbers may be low

Sewri’s TB Hospital has treated at least 50 to 60 paediatric patients in the age group of three to 16 years since its reopening four months ago. The paediatric ward had been defunct for four years. Considering the lack of paediatric care and the volume of drug-resistant patients, an activist said that the number may be low.

“We have one paediatrician and other doctors assisting him. The ward started functioning again in the last week of August. Before that, we were admitting children in female wards. But we did not take very young children” said Dr Namrata Kaur Bhui, medical superintendent of the Sewri TB hospital.

Currently, the only public facilities catering to paediatric TB patients are Wadia Hospital, which has an MOU with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Sewri’s specialised TB hospital and JJ Hospital.

Ganesh Acharya, a TB survivor and activist mentioned that other civic hospitals in the city avoid handling paediatric TB patients due to the specialised expertise required.

“Due to the lack of specialists to treat paediatric patients elsewhere, receiving treatment in hospitals is the only option for most. In four months, just 50-60 paediatric patients is a low number. Children account for five to seven per cent of drug-resistant TB cases,” Acharya said. There are an estimated 6,000 drug-resistant TB patients in the city.

Explaining the necessity for a separate paediatric ward, Associate Professor of Paediatrics at JJ hospital, Dr Sushant Mane, who is also part of the hospital’s TB centre, said, “The treatment of paediatric patients is very different from that of adults. The profile of side effects from medications and the drug protocol are also different.”

The JJ hospital caters to at least 40 to 45 children on an outpatient basis every week, out of which seven to eight are first-time referrals. “That means these children were diagnosed with drug-resistant TB and sent to us from elsewhere because the facility did not have the expertise to manage drug-resistant TB,” Dr Mane added.

Meanwhile, in the civic health department’s annual survey of 40 lakh people, conducted between November 20 and December 7, 2023, 136 new patients with tuberculosis were found. The city’s TB officer, Dr Varsha Puri, remained unavailable for comment.

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Approx. weekly paediatric patients at JJ hospital

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