This 12-Year-Old Girl Is Dying Even Faster Because Of Poverty | Milaap
This 12-Year-Old Girl Is Dying Even Faster Because Of Poverty
  • Isaac

    Created by

    Isaac Kaipeng
  • PD

    This fundraiser will benefit

    Putuli Debbarma

    from Agartala, Tripura

Youngest of the three girls, my 12-year-old daughter Putuli has been bottling up her pain. She has lost interest in everything she used to love. My once jovial child is in pain because one organ is failing her entire body quietly and I feel so helpless.



My name is Rati and I live in the small village of Durantapara, Tripura. My wife Yalug and I spend our days working day in and out so that my daughters can study and have a different fate than we do. 

Yalug works on the farms when there’s a season for crops. In other times she helps as a domestic help. I earn only when I am able to get work. I sometimes work in the fields, cutting the soil and at other times I just have to struggle to find work.

I have two elder daughters- 19-year-old Shibani and 17-year-old Swari. All my daughters are very close to each other and none of them can stay without each other even for a while. But my elder daughters are now scared that they might lose their youngest sister.

Putuli was a very happy child. She loved going to school, loved studying and loved going to school. Now my child can neither go to school nor do many physical activities. She is slowly slipping away from us.

My little girl was doing fine, until 6 months ago when she started complaining of severe stomach ache. She had a fever. We are very poor and we usually tend to have a reluctance to go to the doctor for such trivial issues like fever and stomach ache.




But soon after, Putuli’s face, stomach, and her entire body began swelling. We had to rush her to the doctors. After thorough tests, the doctors confirmed that our little girl has nephrotic syndrome which means her kidney is damaged. We anyway struggle for our basic survival and now such a big disease and I didn’t know how to fight her back from death.

It’s been almost 6 months and Putuli has barely been able to eat. Although she can’t eat she had gained a lot of weight. She isn’t growing normally, it’s the medicines that control her. Even her weight gain and loss is not in our control. She has not got up from her bed in the longest of time.

Six months back, when my little girl had to be admitted to the hospital for the first time, little did I know that her treatment isn’t going to be as easy. Yalug and I didn’t want her to die and hence we somehow managed to get her admitted to the hospital. But when this became a regular affair, we no longer could manage the expenses. We had to bring her back home because we were incapable to carry her treatments any further.

Yalug and I are trying very hard to get some funds to give her life. I am failing as a father to save my own child. None of our work pays us so much that we can afford such an expensive treatment. I was always a content man and I never had the urge of being rich. But now, I feel money is the only way that will give my daughter a life. I will never be able to forgive myself if something happens to Putuli.

None of our relatives have been able to really help us. They give us Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 which doesn’t suffice my girl’s treatment. They are also very poor. People don’t really come forward to help us because they are doubtful if I will pay them back because I am so poor. But nobody really understands that this lack of money is killing my daughter.

I have spent almost Rs 1 lakh and post that I couldn’t afford treatment. But it’s painful to sit back and watch my child die. I can’t take away her pain. But I want to save her.

How can you help?

Rati and Yulug don’t want to give up on their youngest daughter. Putul’s kidney disease is becoming fatal gradually. Her treatment which is the only way to save her will cost Rs 1 lakh. The family’s poverty is overtaking the little girl’s life.

Your support can help Putuli.


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