Death and Statistics
Around a million people die from renal failure every year.
That is just a line on a paper. That is just a statistic. It doesn’t evoke any
emotion and if it does its fleeting. Just a whim of sympathy. It isn’t
something to feel awful about. Its human nature. It’s only news until it
happens to you. But once you delve deeper into the statistic, things start to
become different. A hundred thousand people die of renal failure in a country,
a thousand in a city, a hundred in a hospital, a single death on 27th
February, 2016. The death is no longer a statistic; it’s the loss of a brother,
a husband, a father. The single deaths that make up the millions then have a
face. They have a family. They love and are loved. They have a legacy which has
been smeared with the memory of their gradual fall into the abyss of pain and
suffering. The father who used to bring home birthday gifts, the brother who
used to play football, the husband who used to quote poetry is lost and what
remains is this image of a man fighting for every breath, and losing. Death
comes and snatches away a soul and leaves in its wake a sea of tears. Cries
that will haunt the hospital forever pierce the silence of the night. Another
death leaves the doctors holding their heads, questioning their career choice,
wondering what they could have done different.
A million people will die from renal failure this year.
That’s a million families robbed of their happiness. That is more than a
statistic, it has to be.
Sun Krishna Chandyo, a 65 year old male, died from causes
directly related to renal failure at 12:15 am on Saturday, 27th of
February 2016.
