CHENNAI: 60-year-old Jothi was diagnosed with colon cancer four years ago. Since then, she’s had to travel nearly 30 km every month — from Thirukovil Pathu village in Tiruvallur district to the Government Royapettah Hospital in Chennai — for her medicines. But thanks to the Makkalai Thedi Maruthuvam scheme, she now gets the medicines at her doorstep.
“It was tough to get to the hospital, and I always had to go with my husband. We took the train and buses from our village,” explains Jothi, who uses a colostomy bag, a plastic bag that collects stool through an opening in the stomach.
Under the Makkalai Thedi Maruthuvam scheme, Jothi not only gets palliative care and drugs at home, but even colostomy bags, says S Parkavi, a staff nurse at the Poonamallee health unit in Tiruvallur district.
Members of the medical team implementing the scheme say they are happy to deliver healthcare services at the doorsteps of people who can’t afford to travel to hospitals frequently, and might miss physiotherapy and palliative care sessions, and some even medicines.
“I felt glad when an elderly woman who couldn’t walk thanked me profusely after I helped her stand during a physiotherapy session. She wasn’t getting the medical care she needed as her only daughter had to focus on running the household,” recounts R Poornima, a physiotherapist in the Poonamallee health unit district.
Parkavi points out that the door-to-door screening for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in villages revealed that many people weren’t getting basic healthcare services. “Many of them were elderly people from poor families whose relatives couldn’t take care of them as they had to go to work.”
‘Short of words to thank med team’
Dr S Udhaya Kumar, a medical officer at Shoolagiri block in Krishnagiri district, says he realised how helpful the programme was when he, along with a team, visited a 32-year-old man in coma. The patient, who is being taken care of by his wife, is fed through a hole in his stomach.
Whenever the tube had to be changed, she needed to take him to Bengaluru. But with Makkalai Thedi Maruthuvam, a team now visits him to offer assistance, deliver medicines, dress his bed sores, and change the urine catheter, says Kumar.
Another patient, P Rathnamma (69), from Krishnagiri, whose right leg was amputated, says, “I’m alive only because of the medical team. I am short of words to thank them as I have none at home to help other than my mother.”
Who received medicines at home?
●1,51,077 people with hypertension
●1,00,303 with diabetes
●68,143 with both diabetes and hypertension
●10,516 people got palliative care
●10,927 received physiotherapy
●33 received continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis
Source: Health department data from August 5 to September 4
Soon to cover entire State
The scheme was launched by Chief Minister MK Stalin on August 5 in Krishnagiri, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, Thanjavur, Tiruchy, Tirunelveli and Chennai districts, and will cover the entire State by end of 2021