Cope With Seasonal Sicknesses

Yug Bahadur

The summer is steadily creeping into our lives. And though this must be a welcome development, especially for the weak and elderly people, who want to see the end of the biting cold of Kathmandu, they are still apprehensive of the troubles that will roll in with the warm days of the new season as well. First of all, diseases like dengue is very frightening for the people, especially after they have heard from the media that this dangerous disease will become even more widespread this time. Then there are other common diseases and viral problems which will trouble the people if they eat food kept in the open or if the foods are stale.

Besides, the high heat at some periods during the summer months and the mosquitoes and common flies will also be troublesome. So the only way to stay away from health problems is to make our lifestyle healthy right in the beginning before trouble strikes our body and health. But how can we do this? Like already mentioned above, avoiding stale and openly kept food, drinking plenty of safe drinking water, for the elderly and the weak not to venture out when it is scorching hot and following the instructions given by government health workers can help a lot.

Health policy

But we are not only speaking of the seasonal health problems that both the cold weather and the hotter days can bring, we are going to have a cursory glance at the whole health policy of the government. 

For example, even officials of the Department of Health Services say that there is a lot to be done in this sector to provide good health access to every citizen in every corner of the country. However credit must be given to both the government and also the planners for the good job they have done. It is only at the implementation part that there is a little bit of shortcoming. That also, you can blame this on the huge lack of skilled manpower to operate the medical posts planned by policymakers and constructed by the government on its own or with help from friendly donor nations.

There are cases of many tragedies when poor people living in remote parts of the country have lost their near and dear ones due to lack of proper medical care. Just a few days back, there was a touching story of how a woman lost her unborn baby because there were no adequate health posts to carry out a normal childbirth. 

This story was reported in the media and it was also revealed how the poor woman was forced to walk for about six hours to reach two medical posts, both of which could not help her. Finally, a Nepali Army’s helicopter rescued her and took her to a well-equipped hospital nearby, but by that time the woman had already lost her child, probably due to the walking and the reflex of the woman to not allow the foetus to drop down, said a medical expert.

On the other hand, there are others who can get treatment by the best of doctors in Kathmandu itself, yet they go abroad and spend huge amounts of money for their cure. The irony is that sometimes the cash strapped government also gives funds from its coffers to these individuals, including according to a media report, a foreigner as well, which is sad when our own people are not getting even simple treatment and medicines here. 

However the willingness of our medical personnel even during hard times could be seen when the COVID-19 virus spread, but even an impressed international community praised the efforts of Nepal in containing the virus. 

The task for Nepal was even more difficult not only because it did not have the resources and well-equipped hospitals, but also because of the fact that two of the most populous countries of the world, China and India where the virus was rampant, surround Nepal and the people from these countries could easily have brought in the virus, especially from the open borders between Nepal and India. Yes, thousands of people sadly lost their lives in Nepal too, but this was comparatively quite small in numbers when compared with those who lost their lives in China and India. That the health workers here at the risk of their own lives gave vaccination to millions of people is also praiseworthy.

Now with the entrance of summer, diseases like dengue, jaundice, food poisoning and other such diseases will again trouble, especially the poor, weak and elderly. So the healthy people must first change their lifestyle and not eat whatever they want, specially street foods and the weak and elderly have to be extra careful to not expose themselves to simple dangers, like heat waves for instance to face the dangers that come with every change in the season. Now to come to one of the major setback faced by the Nepali health sector, the trend of most good doctors not going to remote areas to help the ill and the present practice of skilled medical hands going in thousands to foreign lands to get more lucrative jobs is not good.

Strict regulation 

 It is said that more and more nurses are flying abroad and there is an acute shortage of these skilled hospital hands in the country itself. The government should not only encourage the opening of more nursing colleges, but also make plans on how these locally produced skilled hands, so important for any medical work, will prefer to stay back in their own country and help the ailing people here. However, it must not be forgotten that the authorities will have to maintain strict regulations so that only proper institutions can run nursing classes.

Our doctors have already proved themselves by doing well in other countries as well and in Nepal itself, the government has built good hospitals in all the regions and they are also well equipped. The only thing needed is the manpower to run these medical outposts. With proper implementation of the plans and a bit of sacrifice from the medical workers, there is no reason why every Nepali, whether poor or rich, will have better access to quality health in the future. 

(Yug Bahadur is a freelance writer.)