Dr Colin Butler
BODHI Australia
4 Queen Street
Tasmania 7210 Australia
Dear Colin
Thank you very much for sending me the
June edition of BODHI Times. I was interested in the account
of the refugees from Chittagong in Assam. When I was advising
on medical education in Bangladesh I visited many medical
schools, including Chittagong. As a relaxation one evening
the local doctors drove me up into the hill tracts of Chittagong.
It was a beautiful evening and a lovely calm lake up there
but I did learn that there was just the beginning of the
problems for the ancient local tribes as the everflowing
population of Bangladesh was beginning to move into the
hills. This was in 1978.
I was also interested in your editorial and thoroughly agreed how mistaken
it was to prescribe developing countries to switch over
to having to pay for medicines, with the abolition of vertical
programmes. In Zambia, for instance, the tuberculosis programme
was quite suddenly abolished and the tuberculosis advisors
in the Ministry of Health moved to other jobs. The result
was that there were quite suddenly no drugs at all for tuberculosis.
I raised this at the time at a meeting of the College of
Physicians in London, though the representative of WHO there
defended the new policy. However I was backed by somebody
else who reported that in Uganda the child vaccination services
had also been quite suddenly abolished. I wrote a strong
letter to the British Medical Journal at the time. Although
that international policy seems to have decreased, there
are still important residua. For instance I have just learnt
that in Vietnam, with the new international support there
are free drugs for treating tuberculosis but in many of
the provinces patients have to pay for diagnosis and many
are too poor to do so. When they are diagnosed and have
treatment Vietnam is getting extremely good results with
90% cure.
I was also interested to read about your
help for the deaf in Nepal. I have had three long sessions
advising about TB in Nepal and was for a number of years
chairman of the tuberculosis committee of the Britain Nepal
Medical Trust. I still keep in touch. Astonishingly Nepal
had continued to have excellent and well‑coordinated
TB services in spite of the present political anarchy there.
Incidentally you probably know that congenital deafness
is relatively common in South India. This is attributed
to the local habit of uncles marrying their nieces. When
I was convalescing after an illness there, a very smart
young man did approach me for monetary help. He turned out
to be one of those born deaf and having great difficulty
in making his way.
I do congratulate your organisation which
is obviously doing a good deal to help in various places
in the Third World. Some years ago when British concern
for international TB problems had faded after our own decrease
in the disease. some of us started a new British charity
to help overseas. TB Alert. They made me their Honorary
President. They also help in various areas and have given
assistance to a missionary group serving the aboriginal
tribes in the hill country of South India. It also gives
help to other places in India and Africa. I also personally
support a number of British charities helping in various
ways in the Third World. I have good reason to admire what
you do.
All
best wishes for the future.
Yours
sincerely
