One of the saddest things to see is someone die of a disease that could be cured. Recently, I attended the funeral of a young girl whose promising future was cut short by Tuberculosis or TB.
Her supervisor at her office said she was the best salesperson she has ever had.
TB is a curable disease that unfortunately kills many Papua New Guineans. It is caused by bacteria and usually affects the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body. If left untreated, TB is deadly in 50 percent of patients. It is one of the leading causes of death in PNG affecting especially children, women, old people and patients whose immune system may be weak due to severe illness, diabetes, environment conditions, drug and substance abuse, immune suppressing medication of HIV AIDS. (See here for Risk Factors)
Treatment for TB is a long and difficult process, taking up to around 6 to 24 months to totally eradicated TB from a patient’s body. The bacteria that causes TB is difficult to kill with most antibiotics, so strong antibiotics are used against the bacteria. However, different strains of TB are resisted to various antibiotics so different combination of antibiotics are used on the patients according to the type of drug resistance TB they have.
This is a simple explanation.
The truth is a patient going through the stages of TB treatment is faced with a daily ordeal of being terribly sick, weak and bed ridden, taking horrible, nauseating medication for up to an year and often being stigmatized as having AIDs/HIV. In turn, they can be abandoned by friends and family, they can be terminated from their jobs, they can suddenly find themselves not just sick but in a very lonely place, with no money and support and waiting to die.
How can we help reduce the amount of suffering TB patients in PNG go through and get them back into being the productive people that we know they are and free of TB?
I believe Ela Motors TB Workplace Policy is a shining example of how companies can help employees stay clear and clean of TB. Outside of the home, the next place where people spend the most time is where they are employed. Some companies will willingly terminate a highly productive individual who is absent for a long period from work as they undergo TB treatment. Remember, TB treatment can take up to year. I know a lady who was terminated from her job because she was in hospital with TB. It is because of this fear of losing their jobs that cause many TB patients go off their medication too early and return to work. This only makes thing worse because the TB they have now becomes resistant to the medication they were taking and they can spread it in the work place and they can fall back into the illness again.
The Ela Motors policy on TB means that a TB treatment plan will be implemented in every Ela Motors branch in PNG. Under the policy, staff will be screened, educated on TB management and the stigma’s associated with TB.
If staff are diagnosed with TB, they will be treated in the workplace with a treatment plan that respects their nature of illness and assures their medication would always be available. The staff will be monitered and supported. In its newsletter, Ela Motors said on the policy “It is an assurance that you will have the right to keep your job and upon completion of treatment you have secured your future. It means we walk together at work and in life.”
How many TB patients, surviving, current and/or sadly deceased, wish they could have had the same support from their company?
The Ela Motors TB policy was developed with consultation with the National Department of Health, the National TB Program, World Health Organization, World Vision and Business Against HIV AIDS. It was launched last year.
I hope many other companies can develop their own workplace TB policy and ensure that people with so much to contribute are saved from a preventable TB death.
