A Kuki household takes shelter in a relief camp through the ongoing battle in Manipur. File.
| Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR
A team of medical doctors on September four flagged the abysmal living conditions in relief camps in Manipur that’s in the grip of an ethnic battle. Nearly 70,000 individuals displaced by the violence keep in 334 such camps.
A fact-finding team of 5 medical doctors from the non-profit Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) visited relief camps in each Meitei and Kuki-dominated areas on September 1 and a couple of.
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The team discovered 194 individuals from 45 households living in Khumanlankpak sports activities hostel in Imphal district, with a room to every household. There are simply 20 bogs. “What was distressing was there was an acute shortage of piped water and the families had to carry buckets to and fro,” Shakeel Ur Rahman, basic secretary, IDPD, mentioned.
In relief camps beneath the Sapormeina Primary Health Centre in Kangpokpi district in the hills, as much as 600 Kuki inmates had been staying, with one room for as much as three households, the team famous.
The medical infrastructure was additionally poor in Kangpokpi district, with no services for surgical procedure on the District Hospital. The battle had additionally left the superspecialty medical services in the Imphal Valley out of bounds for the Kukis. “There is no functional OT [operation theatre] in Kangpokpi District Hospital, neither are there any blood bank facilities. There are at least four pregnant women in the Kuki relief camp that we visited who are at the cusp of delivery, but may have to be rushed to Kohima or Dimapur [in Nagaland], which is a 24-hour journey, in case of any emergency,” Arun Mitra, president, IDPD, mentioned.
With no leafy inexperienced greens, eggs or milk obtainable, youngsters on the relief camps are going through extreme Vitamin A deficiency. “The capacity to restore Vitamin A in a child’s body is much less than that of an adult. We are expecting Vitamin A deficiency emerging in form of an endemic. Night blindness is a very common fallout of Vitamin A deficiency,” Dr. Rahman mentioned.
“Inmates are only eating dal, rice and potatoes for three meals a day. The situation of food shortage in the camps is so bad that each inmate gets one egg every two weeks. Lactating mothers are not receiving enough nutrition to produce breast milk. A five-day-old baby was being fed diluted milk powder because of lack of mother’s milk or its nearest substitute — cow’s milk,” he mentioned.
With connectivity between the Kuki and Meitei zones disrupted, there may be additionally an acute scarcity of vaccine provides. No particular immunisation drives, particularly in opposition to measles, had been undertaken in the relief camps visited, the team famous.
“Measles Vaccine Immunisation drive in children above 9 months along with Vitamin A oral suspension is imperative for relief camps according to United Nations Commissioner For Relief SPHERE standards,” the team famous.
“Nurses we spoke to in the relief camps said that multiple barricades on Kuki and Meitei sides posed blockage on transport of vaccines,” Dr. Mitra mentioned.
While there was a dengue outbreak, fogging for mosquito management has not been performed in and round relief camps. The team additionally reported a few Kuki sufferers who required haemodialysis however had been unable to entry it in the hills.
“We found patients of diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic kidney diseases in relief camps unable to access help,” Dr. Mitra mentioned.
“Also there is an acute shortage of specialists in the hills where the Kuki-dominated areas are. Vast majority of specialist doctors and all medical college hospitals of the State are located in Imphal (three medical colleges) and Churachandpur (one medical college),” he added.
Measures steered
The team in its report, which will probably be submitted to State and Central officers, together with the Prime Minister’s Office, famous that sturdy referral techniques after triage from PHCs to greater relief centres each inside Manipur and neighbouring States needs to be put in place. Fabricated OTs needs to be operational at district and sub-district stage and blood storage items needs to be began round relief camps after cluster formation, it mentioned.
Internet companies needs to be restored in well being services round relief camps for telemedicine companies to be purposeful. “Basic doctors can be trained in performing peritoneal dialysis, use of ambu bags for children with breathing distress, counselling of mothers for breastfeeding children and so on,” it mentioned.
