Apathy to Odisha HIV+ boy: CMO seeks report from Bolangir Collector

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jun 24:

Odisha Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) has sought a report from Bolangir Collector on non-compliance of a written order from the Chief Minister’s complaint cell for rehabilitating an 11-year old HIV affected boy.

The orphan child yesterday approached the Chief Minister’s complaint cell here along with two other HIV victims of his area and explained his financial inability to afford the medication. The story reached the Chief Minister after the local media gave it wide coverage.

The kid, who belongs to Tureikela village of Bolangir district, has been affected by the disease for quite come time. While medication is available in Burla, it is 200 kilometres away from his place and his financial condition doesn’t allow him to travel from Larki to Burla every month.

The poor boy works in a hotel to earn a meagre Rs 1000 a month and lives with his 70-year-old maternal grandfather. Such is the condition that he has not taken any medicines for the past two years even though continuous medication is mandatory for survival in this deadly disease.

Even though he had approached the collector and CDMO of Bolangir earlier, no one paid heed to his plea, following which he approached the Chief Minister’s complaint cell seeking financial assistance to be able to afford his travel from Larki to Burla and a place to live under the ‘Mo Kudia’ scheme of the state government.

The complaint cell obliged and wrote to the collector. However, it again fell on deaf ears and no action was taken following which the boy approached the complaint cell directly on Monday.

While we attempted to speak to Bolangir collector M Muthukumar regarding the negligence allegation, he refused to comment on it.