Date – 2021 / February Location – Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital Ward 63 Baby Name: XX Age of child: 10 years Disease – Chronic abdominal pain
Date – 2021 / March Location – Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital Ward 63 Baby Name: YY Age of child: 9 years 7 months Disease: Sudden knee pain
The two patients I wrote about above are two very nice, wonderful kids. The first girl comes to us with her mother. Complaining of a chronic stomach ache… After months of testing, she was unable to diagnose any urinary tract infections, constipation, etc. I was sitting where my fellow doctor was writing down details about her. At the end of all the details “Does your daughter do class work? My friend the doctor asked. The daughter did not answer.
Mom “Oh yes doctor. She is sitting for This year’s scholarship. She is very talented. We’re all waiting for her to be the first in the district. I told her she could get two hundred out of two hundred. Everyone in the school has high hopes, ”said her mother with a twinkle in her eye.
That little one’s face went dark.
We met our second child very recently. He is a bright tall, wonderful boy. He also has a terrible knee pain. It was difficult to give him a diagnosis in any way.
So our specialist doctor asked the mother about the child’s school life. “Doctor, school condusts classes until 4 in the evening. Two days start school at 6am and end at 4pm. The child is coming home tired ”
“So the mothers did not object? ”
“I can not resist, Doctor.They will marginalise the child and it is to make the results of the school .. otherwise I will not like it ”
So it’s not a surprise for those children to get stomach aches and knee pains ..
How unfair is it for parents and teachers to make their dreams come true by inhumanly exhausting those little limbs with unbearable pressure?
How fair it is to snatch the evenings spent by playing in the ground, the doll baths and the cricket Sundays from the playground so badly.
By the end of the scholarship, the little ones, who have been pretty tired for years, do not have the slightest bit of energy or enthusiasm to learn when they go to ordinary or advanced level classes. Eventually all of their abilities and talents will end up in the scholarship. Butterfly is a cow that I proudly wrote and came home with only 160 marks for the scholarship but became a doctor at the end. So I hereby ask how fair it is to snatch their childhood for a mere examination.
These are the days when the respect for my mother, who said ‘do itthe way you can my dear’ until the final exam of the medical college, will increase a hundred thousand times.
These are the days when innocent children who come to the hospital with irrational stomach aches and headaches are very upsetting.
So if you are abusing your child or your student in a modern way, knowingly or unknowingly, I tell you to stop today. I beg you to give them back their childhood.
Sudanthi Anuruddhika Sooriyahetti –
(Special thanks to Dr. Shammi Srimal Rathnasiri, Pediatrician who introduced the concept of “modern ways of child abuse”)
Excerpt: Facebook
