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North-East
Beckons
VHAI’s
abiding interest in the North-East stems from an
understanding of the real needs of the people of the
region. As a national network of health and development
organisations, it was but natural for VHAI to take
special interest in the systematic development of the
seven North-Eastern States.
The basic philosophy behind VHAI’s ‘State of
India’s Health’ report of yesteryear and the
current ‘Independent Commission on Health in
India’ was to identify the least developed and most
needy areas of the country. The intention was to use this
information to carve out decisive, innovative and
area-specific intervention programmes in these ‘areas
of darkness’. Daunting indeed was the task, but
greater was our determination to make a dent in the given
scenario. While planning for the North-East, VHAI knew
that this intrinsically important section of the people
needed delicate handling, after effectively weighing the
sensitive socio-political and fragile environmental
factors.
Manipur, known as the land of jewels, with a bright
cultural past, unfortunately faces a very bleak future
due to threats from drugs and AIDS. VHAI’s study in
the State called "Knowledge, Attitude, Belief and
Practice", revealed that 90 per cent of HIV
infections were through intravenous drug use and 10
through heterogeneous sex. This called for action at the
ground level. So VHAI designed direct intervention
programmes and collaborated with the national and
international agencies in fighting against these
problems. The situation was so grave that after a decade
there would not be many people above fifty, as 60 per
cent of HIV positive cases were in the age group between
21 - 30 years. Drugs hit Manipur in the mid eighties in
the form of heroin. The same age group was caught up in
the web to the extent that there are now above 40000
addicts in Manipur, making it the biggest consumer of
heroin in the North-East, leaving not a single family
without a drug addict. Over 90 per cent of the addicts
are intravenous drug users, who open up the flood gates
to HIV infection.
AIDS in the North-East has become more of a social
problem than a medical problem. The situation in the
North-East is very grim especially in Manipur, Nagaland
and Mizoram. Even though no case from Arunachal Pradesh
has been reported, it may just be a matter of time.
Meghalaya and other states are highly vulnerable with the
large number of intravenous drug users.
The clashes among Kukis and Naga tribes of Nagaland lends
a constant danger to the tranquillity of the region. The
real cause of this tension is over the control of the
multi-crore drug smuggling racket.
Assam, the gateway to NE, is slowly turning out to be the
gateway to AIDS. Guwahati, known as the city of eastern
lights, is fed with the killer virus from three
directions - Shillong, Bhutan and Dimapur. Dimapur in
Nagaland happens to be second highest AIDS virus
contracting point of the region, next only to Imphal. To
compound all these problems, the health services in the
State has been registering a declining trend.
Lot more needs to be done to intercept the intravenous
HIV transmission which include effective treatment of
patients, rehabilitation, health education in schools and
colleges combined with decisive law enforcement
mechanisms capable of breaking the nexus between drug
smugglers and their cohorts. Umbrella
Organisations
VHAI put in
sincere efforts to strengthen networking in the
North-East by vitalizing existing State Voluntary Health
Associations and facilitating formation of newer ones.
The organizational and functional needs of these umbrella
organisations were catered to with special reference to
the health care needs of each State. Nagaland, Mizoram
and Arunachal are on the way to becoming full-fledged
State Voluntary Health Associations. Setting up a
regional office of VHAI in Guwahati also helped
coordinate NE activities better.
In the backdrop of deep-rooted social tensions and
economic deprivation, combined with major health problems
like AIDS and Drug Abuses, and more recently the Malaria
epidemic, the State Voluntary Health Associations have
been rendering a range of services, from medical services
to emergency relief work, in order to ameliorate the
sufferings of the poor.
In the current spate of insurgency ravaging Manipur and
the problems of refugees in Tripura and other places,
State VHAs have got involved in relief operations
including provision of health services and other
materials help. Tripura also faces the problem of chronic
shortage of life saving drugs and essential equipments in
the State hospitals as well as other health care
institutions. Drug control machinery is in a total mess.
Lot of spurious, substandard and hazardous drugs are
produced in Tripura. State VHA is seriously working in
this area.
KHOJ Iniciatives
Having faced
with hard realities, VHAI also ventured into some
specific and targetted health and development activities.
These pioneering initiatives, are called KHOJ Projects.
KHOJ in Hindi means ‘to search’. Through these
comprehensive health and development projects, VHAI is
searching for solutions to the problems of the people.
The importance VHAI gives to the North-East can be seen
from the fact that out of the existing 17 KHOJ projects
in the country, six are in the North-East. The KHOJ
Projects in Manipur, Assam (Guwahati & Kamrup),
Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh have begun to
bear good fruits by way of significant improvements in
the health care delivery systems, disease control and
economic activities.
As the monsoon is approaching, the health problems like
Malaria and waterborne diseases like gastero-enteritis
are likely show up their ugly faces again, if past events
are any indication.
The solutions to the problems of North-East do not
necessarily lie in additional resource mobilizations, but
rather in giving adequate attention to health and
development services. Associations like VHAI and State
VHAs can play a singular role in framing effective
programmes and ensuring proper monitoring of centrally
sponsored health schemes in the North-East.
Our hope is that the "areas of darkness" cannot
and should not remain so for ever. VHAI believes that its
North-East policies and experiments will have some
portents for the overall health planning of the country.
Let our efforts be harbingers of change like the early
rays heralding the arrival of sun which rises from the
east.
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