Living in Tharparkar (II)

UMERKOT: In Tharparkar, women and girls fetch water for the family every day, often from a long distance, and from a communal source. This can take several hours, depriving them of profitable working time or education. Furthermore, the constant lifting and carrying of heavy water containers has a negative impact on their health, particularly on the health of pregnant women. Healthcare is a major issue in Thar. A majority of the people are poor and simply do not have the money to afford transport and hospital expenses to get family members treated when they fall ill, which is quite often because of lack of clean drinking water.

Only five woman medical officers and only one gynaecologist are available for the whole district. The main district headquarters hospital has only one male doctor, who is a child specialist. There is no surgeon in any government medical facility in the whole district. No secondary health facilities are available either. As for medical officers in Tharparkar, dozens of posts are lying vacant here, which means that the government’s medical facilities simply do not have the manpower needed to deal with what is happening there right now. Once the immediate concern of providing food and water to those starving is addressed, the Sindh government will have to take prompt steps and fill all vacant posts in the district heath department.

Ali Nawaz Rahimoo

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2014.

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