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Living on a prayer
MAY 14 -
While Pima Bista’s family were participating in Maoist protests in the capital, their 14-year-old daughter was dying of diarrhoea in Dang. Including Pima, five have already lost their lives in the district, with no indication that the epidemic might be contained anytime soon. Over 200 people lost their lives to diarrhoea in Mid-West last year. Sadly, there is no reason to hope things might be any better this year.
In Bista’s village, at least a dozen people contracted the disease before the district health office was notified. The report of Bista’s death itself reached the health office three days after the tragic event.
“We don’t have enough medicines at the health post,” says Keshav Raj Pandit, Dang Public Health chief.
In the Mid-West, it’s difficult to imagine how the deaths of hundreds last year could not mobilise the state to improve the health infrastructure.
The government has planned a few initiatives in Jajarkot, such as construction of 150 toilets in 20 VDCs. The irony is that though contracts for toilets have been handed out, not a single one has been built.
In neighbouring Rukum, where at least 65 people lost their lives last year, one-and-a-half-year-old Darshan B.K.’s name has been added to the list of diarrhoea casualties. B.K. lived a three-day walk away from the district headquarters Musikot.
In Maikot, B.K.’s village, locals complain health officials do not pay any attention to them. A local health post in-charge was absent because he had gone to take exams to Kathmandu. “Health officials only come here after people start dying in huge numbers,” says a local. “It was the same last year. It will be the same this year as well.”
Posted on: 2010-05-15 09:12
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