The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : The wages of neglect

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 01, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

The wages of neglect

Eleven children died in just over a month for lack of proper health care in an Adivasi hamlet in Orissa. Prafulla Das reports.

DASRI AND Kali Jani, a couple living in Dongiriguda, a remote Adivasi hamlet under Jharigaon block of Orissa's Nawrangpur district, have lost their only child. Backbreaking poverty, total neglect by authorities, and now the death of their two-year-old daughter have rendered their lives meaningless.

Raibari, their child, was among the 11 malnourished Adivasi children of Dongiriguda who died between June 11 and July 24 after suffering from diarrhoea.

The victims, eight of them girls, were aged between one and five.

"The Government has not done anything for us till date. I don't know what will happen to my family. I don't know if God will give us another child," said Dasri, a daily labourer.

Somnath and Rangei Jani are another couple who lost their only child, Sumitra.

"Unrecognised hamlet"

For years, Dongiriguda was beyond the ambit of numerous government schemes for Adivasis. A forest village, called an "unrecognised hamlet" by the Government, Dongiriguda like 86 others in the district is not on the development map.

This situation would have continued had it not been for 11 deaths in just over one month.

A few children aged between two and five years ran high fever and had diarrhoea. As desperate parents went to a local quack, more children developed the same symptoms. The children were wheezing and coughing and found it difficult to swallow food. Within a couple of days, they died.

Officials rushed to the hamlet only after reports about the deaths appeared in the media. They then shifted seven of the children to the community health centre at Jharigaon block headquarters, 28 km away from the hamlet.

As the condition of three deteriorated, the authorities shifted them to the district headquarters hospital at Nawrangpur. The last one to die was Gobinda Jani on July 24.

"The authorities never gave us anything. They even failed to save my child," said Chuku Jani, Gobinda's father.

Dongiriguda, like many other villages in the area, is not accessible by road. From Nawrangpur, it is an 86-km drive to Jharigaon block headquarters. From Jharigaon to Dongiriguda there is a narrow forest road of 22 km and then a six-km trek along a jungle path, crossing a couple of hills and nullahs (streams).

None of the 82 families in the hamlet has a BPL (below the poverty line) card because theirs is not a revenue village. They are not extended any government facility except free medicines once a month. Politicians turn up only during elections.

The only link

The woman health worker of the area remains the only link between those living in the hamlet and the Government. She turns up once a month to distribute medicines for diarrhoea and malaria, the two most common ailments.

None of the 335 people in Dongiriguda, who eke out a living by cultivating paddy and other cereals on small patches of hill slopes and working as daily wage labourers in nearby villages, has been to school.

They drink the water from a nullah that flows through the hamlet. The only tube well had been defunct for long. The authorities repaired it only after the recent deaths.

Dongiriguda is now left with 37 children in the age group of 0-5. While 11 of them are undergoing treatment in hospitals, many of those in the hamlet look sick.

The problem of malnutrition is not limited to Dongiriguda. Ailing children from other hamlets are now being brought for treatment by the authorities.

The healthcare system is a shambles in the district. As many as 37 medical officer posts are vacant in the district; the sanctioned posts number 101. Besides, a total of 112 posts of paramedical staff are vacant.

The District Collector, Arabinda Kumar Padhee, who admitted the inadequacies in the healthcare system, said all measures were being taken to prevent further deaths of children.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

Life on the fringes

Hardly hospitals

The wages of neglect

Encroachers in their own land

Degeneration of politics