A relative of mine was admitted recently to a reputed private hospital of Bhubaneswar. Even though I am a doctor by profession, I usually avoid going to hospitals for personal reasons but in this case I had to visit him. The health status of the people of a locality or district or State is reflected in a hospital as the case may be. This visit prompted me to write the article.
Recent survey says that Odisha has a bronze medal (3rd) in diabetes incidence, wooden spoon (4th) in high blood pressure, also ran (5th) in cancer. Keonjhar is a gold medalist in high blood pressure in the State, Sambalpur a gold medalist in diabetes and Puri-Khordha-Bhubaneswar region is too a champion in diabetes. Along with these metabolic diseases, we have snake bites, road accidents, food poisoning, hepatitis, alcohol and pregnancy-related diseases which are reflected in the Government and private hospitals of Odisha.
The high occupancy rate starts from April to October every year. like seasonal fruits there are certain seasonal diseases everywhere and Odisha is no exception. From May to October, we have heart -related diseases, followed by gastroenteritis, hepatitis, malaria, dengue, Chikungunya and many water borne diseases. The cancer and diabetes have become epidemic in Odisha and are neck and neck in competition.
The car parking inside the parking lot and in front of the premier hospital on the road side would give you a rough idea about the health status of the State.
In spite of criticizing any one, let’s go straight to the causes and prevention of these health- related problems.
Majority are preventable through good Governance and publicawareness. Three places are always over crowded in Odisha, they are temples, alcohol shops and hospitals. All these three places are interconnected due to poor mental and physical health of the people. Coming to diabetes mellitus which was only 4 per cent in rural and 8 per cent in urban areas during the 70s, it has shoot up to 16 per cent in last three decades. Similarly, high blood pressure incidence has gone up both in rural and urban population. Due to life style change, the tribal population and farmers are dying prematurely due to these preventable diseases.
Diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart attacks are life style diseases which are preventable. Middle age does not mean there should be a bulging abdomen in the middle. More is the abdominal girth less is the life span.
Obesity should be checked from childhood.Recent survey says 10 per cent of school children are obese in Indiancities! Actually speaking, most of the population in the name of malnutrition are eating more junk food and are lying horizontal, most of the time. Due to easy availability of money, people use motorizedvehicle and refuse to walk, children are no exceptions.
Due to copy of cola culture these non communicable diseases will play havoc in our State. A sick population can neither improve the image of the State nor the country.
The improvement of any country is assessed through few criteria and health status is one of them.
We can say that our State is sick in many aspects and as years go by, it’s going to worsen. Having hundreds of education institutes, beauty parlors, stadiums, once in a year yoga classes, international airports, super markets, bars, gymnasiums and flyovers do not guarantee a healthy nation.
Unless we prevent these non communicable diseases, all these so- called development work would be a great waste in future. A time would come when thousands would die of these non communicable diseases and we would brood what went wrong in our planning and critics would raise the issue of the credibility of our visionary rulersIJ
(Dr Satpathy is a former Joint Director, SAIl)