 "Tuberculosis")
In 2016, the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, one of the largest private hospitals in Kochi district in Kerala, treated more than 200 tuberculosis (TB) patients. But it reported (or ‘notified’) only about 60 to the Kerala TB Cell.
Two doctors from the medical college, Akhilesh K., a pulmonologist, and Rakesh P.S., a community medicine specialist, decided to find out why. They discovered two main reasons.
“One, to protect the confidentiality of the patients, and the other, [the fear] that their diagnosis, especially in cases [which were] not microbiologically confirmed, would be dismissed,” Akhilesh told IndiaSpend.
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