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Deadly diarrhoea
JUL 20 -
It was horrible. My body shakes when I recall the day almost ten years back when I suffered a very common but dreadful disease: diarrhoea. It started early in the morning and by evening I had to be rushed to the emergency ward. I lived with a friend in Patan dhoka in a rented single room. I ran to the toilet every five minutes for the entire day. By the end of the day, I was pale and feeble. I fainted inside the toilet and my friend found me lying unconscious after I did not come out for a long time. I returned home after two days and it took me almost two weeks to recover fully. Had my friend not been there and had I not been in Kathmandu but in a village where medical facilities are not readily available, I might have died due to lack of proper treatment.
My story is not unique, and those suffering from diarrhoea in remote districts of the country are not as lucky as I was because of lack of adequate health care. During the monsoon, the disease threatens even more lives. Caused by unsafe drinking water, every year, diarrhoea wreaks havoc in our country. Many people in rural areas are suffering from this water-borne disease and are losing their lives due to lack of medicine in their neighbourhood.
Health is a fundamental right but people lose their lives every year from simple-to-handle diseases. Lack of access to clean drinking water, especially during the rainy season is the primary cause. With no basic infrastructure in place and a government in transition, it might seem impractical to demand that people be provided with potable water. But, indeed, it is the government’s responsibility to prepare the people to fight the epidemic. Enough medicine should have been delivered to every VDC and municipality in due time so they could be used at this time of need.
The government should ensure its citizens’ safety, but there are things that common people can do for themselves. Every year, people in the country are facing the same fatal, yet easily preventable, problem. They must be aware and take the precautionary steps to prevent the spread of the disease. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: it is best to use boiled water for drinking and in the rainy season is even more important; not eating rotten food is another way to keep the disease at bay; keeping your house and water sources clean also helps.
There are thousands of NGOs working in the health sector in Nepal but their results have been negligible. It’s not that they haven’t done anything; it just seems that they launch programmes to show off to donor agencies, not to improve rural health care. Their reports show that a lot has been done, but the reality shows a different picture. If these NGOs are truly concerned about public health, they should implement programmes that produce positive outcomes in real life, not just on paper.
Posted on: 2010-07-21 07:45
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