E-Paper
‘Discrimination against leprosy patients hinders treatment’
“The campaign is run to eliminate myths associated with leprosy and in the same campaign new patients of leprosy are also identified. The patients should not be discriminated as due to discrimination they face a lot of problems and hence they avoid treatment,” said principal secretary, medical and health, Parth Sarthi Sen Sharma.
On World Leprosy Day on Monday, an awareness rally was taken out in the state capital wherein the participants pledged not to discriminate against the leprosy patients and instead extend help for their treatment.
Principal secretary, medical and health, Parth Sarthi Sen Sharma walked for about two kilometres along with the participants after the rally started from the IMA, Bhavan. Earlier, a session was organised at the IMA Bhavan where speakers discussed about the myths related to leprosy and how to bust those myths.
“The campaign is run to eliminate myths associated with leprosy and in the same campaign new patients of leprosy are also identified. The patients should not be discriminated as due to discrimination they face a lot of problems and hence they avoid treatment,” said the principal secretary.
Dr Jaya Dehalvi Srivastav, the coordinator of the event said that a leprosy patient should be motivated to reach the nearest health centre to get their checkup done so that the required treatment gets started. Chief medical officer of Lucknow Dr Manoj Agrawal and president IMA, Lucknow Dr JD Rawat also addressed the session.
The programme had head of the gynaecology department at King George’s Medical University Prof SP Jaiswar, district health education officer Yogesh Raghuvanshi, paediatrician Dr Salman, and students from nursing colleges who walked in the rally.
During the day, department of dermatology at the KGMU organised slogan competition. A radio programme on leprosy and neglected tropical disease was also organised which was coordinated by Dr Swastika Suvirya and Dr Parul Verma.
