we've been wrestling with the problem of making didi take her appropriate medicines. it's been going on for quite some time now. she has different sets of medicines for day and night and she can't read the labels. she is illiterate...a result of having spat on her pathshala teacher at the tender yet revolutionary age of 5. and nobody's at home most of the time to sort out her daytime medication.
i got her two boxes today - she chose, ironically enough, pencil boxes. one black for night and the other one a sunflower yellow for day. she thinks this could work.
made me think. what happens to most of the rest?
will the healthcare industry ever be able to work around that one? when people don't have the language to express their ailment, the language to seek relief, the skill to access help at hand, then how can it be reached to them?
100% literacy is a distant dream, even if the scales are tilting, functional literacy as officially declared translates to the ability to scribble the semblance of a signature. what is to be done in the meantime?