Three people, including two children, have died of diarrhea in Sada Tole, Chhinnamasta Rural Municipality-5, Saptari due to lack of treatment. The diarrhea that has been spreading in the settlement for three weeks has not yet been controlled.

Initially, 9 people were tested for cholera after RDT (Rapid Diagnostic Test) and culture tests, and 5 people were confirmed to have cholera. 90 families in the settlement have been running their daily lives from three water tanks. Out of 90 houses in all three toles, not one has a toilet. Since there are not enough water tanks, they have been relying on ponds and streams for water. Cholera bacteria have been found in the water of the ponds and streams. Cholera bacteria have been found in the water of the ponds and streams that the residents of the tole always use for bathing and washing dishes. The village municipality, in collaboration with the health office, sent the water samples from the water tanks, ponds and streams to the Provincial Public Health Laboratory in Janakpur for testing on Wednesday.

When the report came on Saturday, the health department chief of the rural municipality, Senior Ahab Dipendra Prasad Yadav, said that cholera bacteria were found in the water of the pond and the Bhaluwahi river. ‘We are alerting the locals not to wash dishes in the pond and the river and not to use the water there in any way,’ he said, ‘20 volunteers deployed from other organizations are also helping in that work.’ According to him, the condition of the patients with diarrhea is normal and the situation is under control.

The situation is similar in the village, which is about 600 meters southwest of this village, where 27 extremely poor families of the Sada community live. No one in that village has a toilet. Two people from that village, which is suffering from poverty, have also suffered from diarrhea.

In this village, people are more worried about the suffering caused by their poverty than cholera. They have been earning their living by working as wage laborers. They express their pain of waiting for death due to financial problems when they fall ill. Five years ago, 62-year-old Samatoliya Devi of the same village lost the use of her left hand. She could not be treated immediately as there was no money at home. After a month and a half, her eldest son Shankar and younger son Shivnarayan, who had gone to Punjab, India to work as laborers, returned home and started treatment for Samatoliya Devi at the village clinic. However, she did not recover. Later, her brothers took their mother to Kharaiya, Bihar, India for treatment. After a few days of treatment, Samatoliya Devi recovered. However, the entire 17,000 rupees that her brothers earned was spent on treatment. When they returned from treatment, the stove in their house did not light for a few days.

Shivnarayan expressed his grief that seven members of the family barely made ends meet after not having work for three days. Later, when they started getting work, their daily lives became easier. However, less than a year after spending all the money they had for treatment, Samatoliyadevi started having the same problem again.

She has been spending the quarterly old-age allowance (social security allowance) on medicine and food. Samatoliyadevi has not received treatment as the money her brother earned from working as a wage laborer is not enough to support the family. Now, the left side of her body has stopped moving, including her hand. Samatoliyadevi has been bedridden for four years. ‘Due to her mother’s condition, she has not been able to go out to earn money,’ said Shivnarayan. ‘It is uncertain whether she will recover or not, but the fact that she has not been able to get treatment for her mother, who raised her through hardship, continues to haunt her.’

After losing her father when Shivnarayan was four years old, her mother raised both her sons by working in someone else’s fields. However, due to financial constraints, they have not been able to get their mother further treatment even if they wanted to. They say that now the daily routine of Shivnarayan and his sister-in-law Dhaneshwori Devi is spent on feeding, bathing and taking her outside to defecate.

Due to illiteracy and lack of a source of income, the condition of the residents of the village has not improved. Most of the children in the settlement do not go to school. There is a practice of getting married before the age of puberty in this community. Ward Chairman Jayaprakash Thakur said that the residents of the village have been spending a lot of money on food and have not been able to become financially strong.

‘They work hard all day, but in the evening, there is a tendency to spend all the money they earn on bad food (alcohol),’ he said. ‘When parents do that, children also try to imitate them.’ Ward Chairman Thakur said that it is difficult to change their behavior even if they want to. "They are not even interested in going to school, they get married before reaching the age of majority and when their responsibilities increase, they go to Punjab and Mumbai to work as labourers," he added.