When school hostels dish out health concerns Premium

In Nagarkurnool, Telangana, 216 of 470 ST girls in an Ashram school fell ill due to suspected food poisoning. In a similar incident in a nearby district, 3 students had difficulty breathing. In both cases, the hostels lacked basic amenities like drinking water filters and overcrowding was an issue. Parents, activists, and citizens are demanding answers and action to ensure student safety. The HC has directed the govt. to file a report and police have intervened in another incident. Parents are concerned and authorities must ensure quality food and basic amenities in hostels.

September 14 was just another day for Rama Devi, a Class X student of the Telangana government’s Ashram school for Scheduled Tribe girls in Mannanur, located 140 kilometres south of Hyderabad, in Nagarkurnool district. In the evening, she sat down to dinner in the hostel mess. The menu featured the typical fare of the area: rice, ivy gourd curry, and sambar. Soon, she got an excruciatingly painful stomach ache.

Yellamma, the night guard for the residential school, rushed to the girl writhing in pain. But even before she could do anything, the student collapsed on the veranda outside the mess hall. Headmistress-cum-hostel welfare officer Mangamma was not available on campus, and all the teachers had left after duty hours. Yellamma wasted no time taking Rama to a government hospital 200 metres away.

What initially appeared as an isolated incident soon escalated into a full-blown crisis, as student after student reported sick. Passers-by watched in disbelief as 216 of the 470 hostel inmates were rushed to hospital. Of those, 20 were admitted to the intensive care unit of the government hospital at Achampet, around 16 km away.

The diagnostic tests did not suggest any serious ailment, and within two to three days of medical treatment, all of them recovered. Anguished, the parents refused to send their children back to the hostel immediately, and the majority of the other students, traumatised by the incident, were also taken home.

Headmistress Mangamma, who was absent on the night of the incident, was suspended by the government.

In a disturbing twist, a similar incident, albeit on a much smaller scale, took place in an ST girls’ hostel in Miryalaguda town of neighbouring Nalgonda district the same evening. 

Three students complained of difficulty in breathing after dinner, leading to another frantic run to the hospital. They were discharged the next morning. “One student complained of breathlessness. Others had stomach pain. The precise reasons for their sickness are yet to be ascertained,” says hostel warden Ahalya, quoting doctors.