Bringing people together and work collectively to end Tuberculosis in our area.

Overarching Goals

• The overarching goal of Bantra St. Thomas Home Welfare Society (BSTHWS) is, that nobody in its catchment area dies of tuberculosis (TB). This is a realistic goal. Everything what is needed to achieve this goal is available: specialist doctors, free of charge tuberculosis medicine, infrastructure for patients (DOT-centers) in all parts of Howrah. If patients of our catchment area still die of tuberculosis, it must have organizational reasons. And this means that these deaths of tuberculosis are changeable.
• Another closely related goal is that no person must live with irreversible organ damage after an episode of TB. There shall be no irreversibly damaged lung or spine or brain, or damage of other involved organs of the human body anymore. To achieve this goal, there must be good access of the population to affordable quality medical care, and it needs continuous attentiveness of all health care providers, be them nurses or doctors or administrative persons or social workers, to the possibility of tuberculosis when a patient turns up with his or her complaints.
• And TB patients must be identified early in the course of the disease, before lungs so much damaged, that for the rest of their life, Ex-tuberculosis patients have shortness of breath when walking. To achieve this, patients with TB suspicion or with verified tuberculosis need to be referred to specialized centers of the respective part of the town without delay.
• Only professional medical work will contribute to another goal of BSTHWS, that is to slowly revert the spread of tuberculosis germs in its catchment area, that do not respond to antibiotics anymore. So called multidrug-resistant germs are putting a terrible burden on tuberculosis patients and exert a lot of pressure on health care providers, too. These germs are result of insufficient tuberculosis treatments in the past, and it will take many years to crowd them out by exemplary medical and social work in the community.
• Another goal of BSTHWS is that no family falls into poverty because a bread earning member has fallen sick with tuberculosis and cannot work, be it temporarily or permanently. To achieve this goal, it needs good social work.
• This goal is close to another one: that no child drops out of school because an adult of the family has tuberculosis and cannot support the child anymore.
• Another goal of BSTHWS is that no person is discriminated against because he or she has tuberculosis. Lack of solidarity from own family or neighbors, and requests to leave the house and go anywhere for the time of the disease, shall never put additional pressure to bear on for an already weakened TB patient.