sad but true.....

Verbal autopsies are done to reach to the root cause of deaths of infants. Well a knotty thing to do! As soon as I came to know that this is going to be a part of our regular activities in the villages we are working in I chose to avoid it! But its said that the more you avoid a particular situation the more you are destined to be a part of it. I was assigned the task of field testing the newly designed verbal autopsy forms. This was not the same as any other field tests we conducted in the past because it involved instigating (in a way) the mother or whoever would be the respondent to relive the moments they must be trying hard to forget.
On my way to the villages I kept thinking how I would be able to break the topic. How would I ask a mother that I wanted detailed information of her child’s death? Finally I reached my destination and our field workers took me to the houses where infants had recently died. All around me I could see only females and they were so poor and malnourished that it made me wonder how they survived child birth! I asked the field worker to brief them on why I was there as he could communicate with them more easily in their language. Meanwhile I sat there feeling nervous and preparing myself for the denial and anger of these mothers who would ask me to spare them the agony of thinking about the recent tragedy that they had gone through.
But I was wrong….
I found myself surrounded by all these women the next moment. I could not believe they were actually looking forward to this session! One of them said her baby died 21 days after it was born. It just stopped taking feed and was dead within hours! She had a girl happily playing in her lap oblivious of whatever was happening around her. An extremely anaemic woman was sitting by herself in one corner and I was told she lost twin children within 2 days of their birth. Extreme poverty and malnourishment were written on her face. How could she have given birth and that too to twins and survived it all! The reasons for the deaths seemed to be directly related to the mother’s health status, her workload and rest patterns and nutrition intake.
While asking questions to her I realised that I was surrounded by many women now and they were very excited about whatever was going on! Many of them came forward and told me that they had also lost newborns. “madam mera bhi interview le lijiye. Iskey baad kuch honey wala hai kya? Sarkar se kuch milega ya aapke project se,”said a woman. I sat there totally numbed by the insensitiveness of the people around me.
On my way back I thought it was wrong to say they were insensitive. Actually life had been so harsh on them since they were born that nothing stirred them any longer. Facing troubles and sadness is a daily routine. They know they have to go on living bearing these hardships every moment. Sad but true…