Rural Health.

[Guest guest]

Dear

 

Rural health has been the subject of my study. You will be aghast to know that

the rural population of India is treated worse than livestock. Poverty alone

cannot ruin the rural poor. They have survived for centuries by eating a

combination of rice, water, salt and a piece of onion. Their basic constitution

has always been very strong as proximity to nature has ensured that only the

fittest survive and grow up.

 

Today the worst hazard they face is the result of contamination and health risks

from the kind of jobs they are regularly assigned. If they work in mines and in

crushers they end up with TB and damaged lungs from inhaling coal dust, asbestos

and other particles (Pneumonosilicosis, I think is the term). If they work in

hazardous places like uranium mining they come down with cancer and genetic

disorders. Arsenic contamination of drinking water is a major source of death in

many villages. Industrial waste dumped into their environs and water sources

take many lives. It has been noticed that many tribes are on the verge of

extinction just because there have been efforts to bring them to the mainstream.

 

The long working hours and hazardous nature of their jobs makes them prone to

vices such as smoking and drinking. This takes an even greater toll on their

lives. They are also subject to trafficking and the menfolk find themselves sold

into bonded labour and many women are forced into abject slavery in urban

households or worse, end up as sex workers. Everyone knows that unless certain

basic rights are ensured to them it is futile to talk about rural healthcare.

Moreover doctors do not like rural postings and most of the rural clinics are

run by the pharmacists.

 

The Govt's of many States have drawn up plans to throw open the clinics to

ayurvedic and homeopathic practitioners. But you can guess why this move is

being opposed tooth and nail. Someone here talked about ayurvedic doctors

getting rich but the reality is that BAMS doctors end up either as pharmacists

or as health workers. Only recently a Govt advertisement to fill up posts of

rural health workers on a paltry salary of Rs. 4000/- ($ 80.00) a month has

prompted fully qualified BAMS and BHMS doctors to apply for the same.

 

The day before yesterday, Sep 24th, while inaugurating an alternative therapy

exhibition, Arogyam 2005, our Health Minister Dr A Ramadoss has lambasted the

narrow views of mainstream medicine and vowed that he would not rest till Indian

methods of medicine and homeopathy received due recognition. I am waiting for

that speech to appear in the mainstream English media. If it is not carried then

I'll report from a vernacular newspaper that has carried the news yesterday.

Previously Mrs Sushma Swaraj, MP, had also declared in the same forum (Arogyam

2004) that the Govt of India is drawing up plans to make ayurveda the mainstream

medicine in India. A three pronged approach has been drawn up and this plan will

not only target India but also those countries who are trying to sully the

reputation of alternate therapies. Dr Ramadoss has categorically declared that

such voluminous data will be released to the world that no organisation will

henceforth dare to call the alternate physicians "quacks".

 

We can no longer afford to call our present health problems merely physical

problems limited to the body. The octopus like dynamic nature of disease,

combining the worst aspects of human frailty, social corruption and

environmental degradation must be recognised. Today many authors like Padma

Krishnan (Earth Care & Health Care) and Dr Deepak Chopra (Quantum Healing) are

trying to address this problem. God willing all our efforts will bear fruit. The

Indian ethos is one of serving others. We need this ethos to permeate into the

political arena. It is a difficult job but not impossible. They need our votes

to survive.

 

Regards,

Jagannath.

 

 

ayurveda, Todd Caldecott <todd@t...> wrote:

> let us focus on a solution as a group -what can we do as concerned

> citizens of the world, of our shared humanity?