MUMBAI: An average of 150 TB patients abscond from GTB Hospital in Sewri every year, an RTI query has revealed. Since 2013, nearly 800 patients have gone missing from the Asia's largest TB facility , even as the hospital claimed many have been traced to their homes.The WHO report on TB, released on Tuesday, termed it the world’s deadliest infectious disease, affecting 10 million in 2017 and contributing to 1.6 million deaths.In 2017, a total of 115 patients disappeared from the 1200-bed hospital without seeking a formal discharge. It was a marginal fall from 163 in 2016 that included 20 female patients. In the first eight months of 2018, 76 patients have already absconded despite the hospital introducing measures to improve the treatment and stay experience. Male patients have constituted around 80-85% of the missing cohort, the RTI query filed by Chetan Kothari found.Experts say the numbers have once again highlighted the painfully long tuberculosis treatment regimes that can stretch up to two years for patients suffering from multi-drug and extensively drug-resistant TB. Additionally, the treatment can linger if patients suffer from complications such as damage of one or both lungs. “For most diseases, the patient’s length of hospitalisation is predictable. But for TB, it can stretch from weeks, months to years,” said Dr Lalit Anande, medical superintendent of GTB Hospital.The average duration of hospitalisation ranges from one to three months. However, the longest a patient has stayed in the Sewri Hospital, where abandonment is common, was 14 years. So much so that a garden in the hospital premises was named after the patient, who had succumbed to the disease. Kothari said that 10 patients have been abandoned by their relatives in the hospital since 2014, of which three cases were as recent as last year's. The number of patients seeking discharge against medical advice from the facility also hovers between 500 to 600 every year.Anande said the hospital administration registers an FIR with the local police station after a patient disappears. Often a phone call from the police station is enough to know that the patient has gone back to his relatives or friend.

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