old me that about Taka 50,000 would be necessary for a cycle of chemotherapy. I proposed that AAN would bear 50% of the medicine cost required for this cycle of chemotherapy. In middle of February 2006, we received a batch of receipts from Aziz. His medical expenses amounted to almost Taka 110,000, of which Taka 56,248 was spent for medicines. Dr. Ekhlasur kindly took the trouble of going through his medicine
bills and sorted out that the total cost of medicines for chemotherapy was Taka 41,689. AAN provided Aziz with Taka 21,000. ●Mafiqul Islam, Azagora Village,Chandpur District One late afternoon of a cold cloudy day in mid-December 2005, a man called at our office in Dhaka accompanied by a lock mechanic who had done some work for us a couple of months ago. The mechanic said: ―Having seen the photographs of arsenicosis symptoms on your wall, I thought you might be able to help him. He is from my village, Azagora, in Chandpur‖. The mechanic added that there were many patients like him in Azagora. On shaking hands with the man, I realized he was suffering from arsenicosis. His hand was warty. He, Mafiqul Islam, 35 years of age, showed us various medical reports, one of which was a radiotherapy completion certificate issued by the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). Mafiqul explained that skin lesions started to appear five to six years ago. First he went to see a village doctor. The doctor diagnosed his symptoms as skin disease but could do nothing saying that he had never seen such symptoms. Having visited many doctors and hospitals, including DMCH, he came to know that he was suffering from arsenicosis and it was due to arsenic in tube well water. Then he switched his drinking water source to pond in the hope of getting better. The tube well water which he had been drinking since his childhood, was painted red a couple of years ago during the national screening. The Data Book Vol. 2, issued in October 2003 by the National Arsenic Mitigation Information Centre (NAMIC) under the Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project (BAMWSP), recorded 98.67 % tube wells in Tamata Union, where Azagora belongs to, were arsenic-contaminated. ―About two years ago‖, Mafiqul continued, ―tumor developed above the right heel. I underwent surgery at DMCH to have the tumor removed, but it was never cured. Rather it became larger and larger day by day.‖ This was why he held the radiotherapy completion certificate by DMCH. He showed us the affected part by lifting a piece of white cloth which he was using to protect it from infection from dusty air. I was trembled at the sight of the condition. The part was showing flesh, wet and red, in a circle of about 5 cm in diameter, surrounded by dry, blackened skin. I told him to visit Dr. Ekhlasur at the Yamagata Dhaka Friendship Hospital for consultation since he was a reliable orthopedic surgeon with the state-of-art operation skills. Mafiqul left our office hobbling with the right hand on the shoulder of the lock mechanic. Walking must have been giving him
pain. The following day, Dr. Ekhlasur called me and said: ―What I can do to save Mafiqul‘s life would be to amputate the lower part of his right leg and give him an artificial leg. Operation cost would be around Tk. 50,000.‖ Having heard the doctor‘s words, Mafiqul gave up the operation. Where on earth can I procure such a big amount of money? — he must have thought. He was a farmer with a very small piece of land and also ran a grocery shop in the village. In recent years, however, he was unable to do any farming work due to the pain from keratosis on palms and the tumor around the heel. The shop, too, was very small and his customers were only within the village. In January 2006 a TV director came with a cameraman from Japan. They shot Mafiqul and Noorjahan, his wife, in Azagora, and later followed him to DMCH in Dhaka when he needed further treatment. His doctor told the TV director that in fact Mafiqul was suffering from lung and lever cancers and those were at terminal stages. Their documentary film was broadcast in March in Japan 