ABSENT STATE
The Kathmandu Post
17th
April 2015
ABSENT STATE
The death toll in Jajarkot district has
reached 16 due to unknown disease that broke out in VDCs in the last two weeks (“Deaths
linked to swine flu” 15 April, Page 1). After tests, this disease has now been
linked to be swine flu. It took two
weeks for the concerned health officials to find out the causes of the illness.
It is really sad to see people dying of
diseases out in remote VDCs where health facilities are reportedly nil. The
government owned health service outlets in the VDCs are poorly equipped and
lack trained health staff and medical facilities. The government supplied
medicines hardly last for six months and most are substandard. Most of these
service outlets lack adequate number of health workers and proper
infrastructures.
Organizationally, the health delivery
system at the local level is one of the best systems in the South Asian
countries. Nonetheless, every year, many rural people die of different kinds of
epidemic diseases due to a lack of proper planning, implementation, supervision
and monitoring systems. However, the government and the concerned authorities
do not seem to be serious about correcting these shortfalls. When will they act
responsibly?
Rai Biren Bangdel
Maharajgunj.
