Bad Health….

Does India really value life above all else?
Shocking. Alarming. A massive crippling crisis. These words ring the chords of another November 26th or July 11th. However, when I’m speaking these words, I’m referring to the state of maternal mortality in the country. According to UN, 80,000 Indian women- pregnant or new mothers- die each year from totally preventable causes such as excessive bleeding, anaemia or ratcheting blood pressure.
Not that I’m playing a blame-game against the government. I’m talking about the same Indian Janta who marched the streets with banners and shouting for resignation of the ministries after the Mumbai mayhem, which they said was totally ‘preventable’ if not the negligence of the government in playing their role. But the same Janta recourses to a mute slumber when millions of mothers or even children under five die from entirely preventable causes such as malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition or starvation. Take maternal mortality itself. Maternal mortality rate in India is six times worse than China, eight times worse than Cuba’s, whose people have been living in embargo for decades. And it’s 14 times worse than Chile’s. The UN estimates that 2.1 million Indian children under the age of five die every year mostly from preventable disease.
Indeed, controlling the causes behind these may not be as forbidding a challenge as containing terrorist. Basic hygiene, clean water, and essential medicine are all that it takes. For instance, potentially fatal dehydration from diarrhea can easily be avoided using sugar, salt and water!!
Security is now being spoken as an election issue. But never has such importance being accorded to human health. Of the 5 percent GDP that Indians spend on health, only .9 percent is supported by government. But we never raise a voice against such issues. Obviously we are too busy fighting for extending the reservation quota or the V-Day stuffs. Whose has got the time to watch these alarming death tolls, when you have got girls in noodle straps boozing in pubs? Nevertheless, dying of these preventable causes belongs to our very own Indian Culture. Unlike in the US and Europe, health has never being a social or political issue, rather say no issue at all. Bad health is something that happens in our country. It’s just in India that you could die even of diarrhea.
Just step back a bit and all the preventable fatalities-whether from terror, disease, dowry or even road accidents- seems to be symptoms of systematic ailment. The cheapest commodity in India today is human life!