Mumbai's neighbouring district lacks basic facilities

Mumbai: One would assume that Thane being the satellite district of Mumbai, it would enjoy the facilities that the rich metropolis has in terms of health and education.

The truth is far from it. Malnutrition among children, particularly among tribals, can put Maharashtra, a state with the highest foreign investment, to shame.

And even what exists in this second most populated district in the country with an 8.2 million population, there is a vast difference between what is available in the urban areas of Ulhasnagar, Kalyan, Bhiwandi, Virar, Vasai, Palghar and Dahanu, and in the tribal and rural villages. Maharashtra's economic survey states that infant mortality was 42 per 1,000 live births during 2004-2005.

Bringing about changes in the mindset of people has always been a challenge for health workers but non-governmental organisations like Population First, the aim "is to give information in the way people can understand, at a time when they are in a mood to listen and motivate the community to take care of themselves," says A. L. Sharada, Programme Director, of Population First, supported by the UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund Agency, working in 20 villages of Thane.

If a village, for example, has to be trained in waste water disposal by constructing soak pits, they have to understand the effects of stagnant water, she says.

"On a day the village gets together, we ask them how much they spend on health in a year and tell them the way to good health is in their hands. Stagnant water breeding mosquitoes and unhygienic toilet conditions give rise to malaria, diarrhoea, cholera and various other sicknesses that make children anaemic."

Children are also monitored regularly by weighing them in public to demonstrate and tell them the relation between and development and how vulnerable they could be to various diseases.

"In most non-tribal villages, the highly receptive and educated youth is roped in to implement health programmes," she says.

But the biggest hurdles are in the tribal villages where, according to UNFPA, malnutrition is high, anaemia is high and parasitic infections like diarrhoea and dysentery and malaria are common causes of maternal morbidity.

"Health care services are sought only in advanced stage of illness since tribal people rely on local systems of medicine provided by local quacks or medicine men," says Sharada. And to make matters worse superstitions, traditional beliefs and customs aggravate their health status resulting in high infant and maternal mortality.

During monsoon, it becomes all the more difficult for health workers to reach out to the tribals who usually live in the interior.

This is because, 42 per cent of the villages in the district are not connected by good roads and are cut off from the outside world during monsoons.

According to the District Census Book Thane, remote rural and tribal areas do not have adequate access to drinking water and only 15.7 per cent of villages have access to medical facilities.