Healthcare and education in rural areas in sorry state, says Nagaland student body leader

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Aug. 8 (EMN): The healthcare and education scenario in urban and rural areas of Nagaland presents two contrasting realities- the former with modern facilities and the latter without it, said Tobu Area Students’ Union (TASU) president, Sangti Konyak.

Speaking to Eastern Mirror Konyak said although the communitisation policy is good for the communities, its implementation is not satisfactory as most people are not aware of the rules and do not know how to exercise it. He pointed out that some villages don’t have qualified persons, who had passed Class 10, to lead the community.

He asserted that the community should take the responsibility of refining these two institutions — healthcare and education — in rural areas.

Konyak and his team had recently conducted a four-day education tour from August 1 to 4 on the theme “Teach for Tobu, Teach for Next Generation” across 16 villages under Tobu area and visited 16 government primary schools (GPS), five government middle schools (GMS) and one government high school (GHS); four Primary Health Centres (PHC) and three sub-centres.

The issues identified during the tour, Sangti shared, were shortage of manpower and lack of access in both the sectors. This, he said, was a common problem in the state especially in the eastern region. In one instance, they came across three classes packed together in one classroom, not because of the shortage of rooms but because of the absence of teachers.

Under the initiative of TASU’s ‘Teach for Tobu’ campaign — Hope Academy at Obay started in 2019 and Faith Academy at Yeangmai in 2020 — students missing out on education are provided basic education to the children in these two villages. 

‘Doctors don’t stay at their posting places’

“Coming to the health sector, the less said the better,” Konyak lamented.

The level of health awareness and access to healthcare is low in the rural population because of the absence of the healthcare workers who are never in their posting places, he alleged.

‘Most of the PHCs and the sub-centres that we visited are just in paper and in structure with no workers,’ he pointed out while acknowledging the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) for working with a meager amount of INR 500.

“Most of the health workers posted in the PHCs and sub centres in Tobu area were found to be attached and working at their own hometown. We understand that it may be not easy for them to travel distances and stay at remote places but if they can at least be at their respective posting station even for 10 days (in a month), it will suffice the community of their needs and care,” he said.

In Yongkhao PHC, he said, there was not a single healthcare worker. The Eleutheros Christian Society (ECS) with the assistance of its founder Chingmak Chang, the Yongkhao Council and TASU pay INR 15,000 (INR 10,000 from ECS and INR 5000 from the two organisations) to a nurse to work at the facility. Also, Advisor to the Department of Underdeveloped Areas (DUDA), N Bongkhao  Konyak is paying  the salary of a doctor posted at CHC Tobu, it was informed.

Shinnyu village, which is the last village under Mon district bordering Myanmar in the east and part of Tuensang and Noklak in the west, neither has internet connectivity nor healthcare workers.

‘Physical reach is one of the basic necessities, however, a person has to travel several kilometre to treat even a cut wound only to find that there are no health workers. We cannot imagine what pregnant women go through helplessly. Even if the healthcare facility is physically accessible, what is the use if there are no workers?’ he asked.

“What was startling was that in Yongkhao, when we checked the PHC report, there were more than 500 patients with the same hygiene-related illness. Even the attendance of the students was found low because of the illness related to poor hygiene,” he lamented.

According to Konyak, the level of health awareness is low in the rural areas and it could be because of low literacy, stress within the healthcare system and low priority to health. People, he said, will continue to lose faith in the government-run institutions if the government continues to display apathy.  

“This gap is likely to widen further with even more complexity in the future if low literacy and low priority for health continues to be uncontrolled not just in Tobu area but across the state,” he said.  

“We must make every effort to raise awareness with the people we work with and must encourage the younger generation to consider education for change although change cannot happen overnight,” he added.