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| Sunday, 17 March 2002 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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SLRC provides substantial medical care by Frances Bulathsinghala
Providing free medical health twice a week, Mulativu Sri Lanka Red Cross mobile health branch, although sparse in embellishment where furniture is considered, has on its walls what could be regarded as a colourful visual version of scriptures for a healthy living. Calendars and posters, dedicated to extolling the importance of a substantial diet, with life-sized cutouts of healthy men, women and children partaking in equally healthy meals, stare down twice a week at a multitude of men, women and children who rarely have the prerogative of at least one substantial meal a day. Barefoot women, who have walked miles with fever ridden infants in their arms, and hardly appeased hunger in their stomachs, stare back in awe at the plump babies smiling from the walls, embraced by bright eyed and lipsticked mothers.
In the heavily battle scarred Mulativu, controlled by the LTTE, where there are only brick skeletal remains of government hospitals, Sri Lanka Red Cross branch, which conducts mobile clinics twice a week, is the only link that the malnourished and almost eternally fever, malaria and anaemia ridden one lakh and twenty five thousand individuals have with medical attention. "I do not want merely medication to treat these people. I want a set of latrines. There are no sanitation facilities. None of the shacks which these people call their homes have any toilets. The diseases are water borne and arise out of hygiene and vitamin deficiencies. The requirements to control this continuous ill health are not just medicine. What is needed are basic requirements, points out Dr. Jekularajah, Chairman of the SLRC, Mulativu branch. Dr. Jeykularajah, a native of Jaffna having himself suffered through the war, losing everything he owned in his home town, speaks with righteous anger at a global home truth where war and its aftermath impose a war of different dimensions on the hapless, the ordinary man, woman and child living in the war crowned areas. "At the height of last years' Malaria epidemic in the area which no one outside the Vanni region knew of, we struggled to keep children and adults from death. There was a time when even the ICRC through whom we get the medicine from was helpless against the embargo in operation which curtailed the transportation of medicine to the area", says Dr. Jeykularajah. According Dr. Jeykularajah present is better than the past. "The kind of malaria which prevails in this area is the recurrent type. Because of the high presence of malaria mosquitoes in the area, people have got immune to the medication prescribed for malaria", he adds.
Jeewarajah Vijayalakshmi (30) who had come to Mulativu mobile clinic the morning of our visit, with her six month old baby, is an example which proves the words of Dr. Jeykularajah, having come thrice consecutively for treatment for malaria. He points out that he had submitted to Sri Lanka Red Cross head office in Colombo a list of projects that could be undertaken in order to improve the hygienic conditions of the people of the Mulativu region which will act as preventive measures against malaria and other common hygiene related diseases such as diarrhoea, scabies and viral fever. One of the suggestions is the building of an outer area for the waiting patients who come to the Kumulamunai SLRC primary health centre (patients queue up as early as 6.00 am and wait outside till the clinic is opened, for treatment which commences from 9.00 am, subject to both the sun and rain ). The facilitation of chairs or benches for the clinic (at present the patients squat on the ground) and the building of a set of latrines in identified settlements in the region are some of the proposals submitted by Dr. Jeykularajah to the SLRC Colombo office. In Killinochchi, again an area controlled by the LTTE, the situation is different to that of Mulativu. According to the Chairman of SLRC Killinochchi, K. Vairamuththu who is also the Deputy Director of Education, the main emphasis is on keeping the health and economic situation of the people of the area under control. In Killinochchi, SLRC officials explain that this is done through the creation of self employment projects and regular awareness programs on the prevention of malaria, dengue, and hygiene related diseases. While the functioning of the regular mobile clinics in Killinochchi continue with a staff of ten with an addition of two doctors, twenty voluntary health workers, other projects such as typing, sewing and teacher training are administered by the SLRC with support from the NGO council in the area and assisted with funds from the UNHCR. There are four training centres located in Poonageni, Killinochchi, Skandapuram and Ramanadapuram. Shorthand typing classes, points out Mr. Vairamuthu operates in Skandapuram, Morasamottai and Jayapuram. The newest proposal of the SLRC Killinochci branch, submitted to its headquarters is to begin computer training on a larger scale. The purchasing of generators has been proposed, the final approval being awaited from the SLRC head office. "Most of the diseases in war torn areas are due to malnutrition. It is by identifying this that we have trained and are in the process of training young people to find a way of earning a living for their families. Agriculture, is a chief sphere which we encourage, beginning at school level. With proper instruction on agriculture we could mitigate to a large extent the level of malnutrition. We have also trained thirty volunteers in basic first aid", points out the Killinochchi SLRC Chairman. In Trincomalee and Batticaloa, both in the cleared and uncleared areas, the SLRC functions with the same momentum. In Trincomalee the SLRC presence has been since 1989 and is at present headed by Dr. G. Gunalan, the former Deputy Director of Health. According to Dr. Gunalan, one of the chief projects undertaken by the Trincomalee Red Cross is the Dental mobile clinic filling a large vacuum in the dental medical sphere in the area. The Trincomalee mobile SLRC dental clinic, caters to the settlements of the displaced people and schools have trained a total of 60 volunteers in primary health care and first aid. "We conduct our camps in the Sinhala, Muslim and Tamil settlements, providing equal attention devoid of any ethnic prejudice", points out Dr. Gunalan. Meanwhile the Honorary Secretary of SLRC, Trincomalee, Nimal Kumar, one of the SLRC members selected for representation at the Red Cross International Federation points out that 1.8 million tooth brushes had been distributed in the region as a part of proliferating dental hygiene. Nimal Kumar explains that (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) UNHCR and CARE are the biggest partners who assist monetarily in the SLRC projects at present. Commenting on the issue of training volunteers, he points out that the motto is - 'train as much as you can. Wherever they go, they take the knowledge with them'. According to the Trincomalee SLRC Mobile Health team leader, Dr. B. T. Udayarathnam bronchitis and viral fever take the lead in the commonly found diseases in the area. The lack of specialists in the Base Hospitals of Trincomalee are compensated to a certain extent by the SLRC mobile clinics which operates in Muthur, Kinya, Morawewa, Serunuwara and Gomarankandawela. In Batticaloa, the doctor in charge of both the ICRC and the SLRC, Dr. N. Murugappan, operating in both the cleared and uncleared LTTE controlled areas, has to his credit trained 600 SLRC volunteer workers in the area who at present has the task of battling with the Dengu epidemic. Fifty Dengu cases has been identified from Batticaloa in the month of February taking a death toll of six. The number of SLRC dental clinics in operation are five. Whether in conversation with the SLRC doctors, volunteers or other staff, the impression created is the dedication that these individuals carry out their activities. None of the volunteers are paid. Yet, they treat with much reverence the knowledge that they reap from the training provided by the SLRC. Hailing from war affected families themselves, cutting a very fine line between those in the IDP settlements, the doctors to the SLRC staff and volunteers - they do not indulge in self pity or idle remorse but take it upon themselves to treat patients in the war wrecked regions with the grace bestowed on them of reviving the health of another. And it is not just treating patients with medicine - it is also in helping them to stay alive with food in their stomachs in areas where to have food in your stomach is a herculean task. |
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