[In India’s remote peaks, the pandemic’s toll is
worsened by lack of medical facilities, roads and information]
By Cheena Kapoor
Devi, 51, shares the shed with a
cow and two cats, and this has taken its toll. Herbal concoctions have not
worked and the visit to a pharmacist in the nearest town, in the Nijmola valley
in the Himalayas, which took an entire day, did not help.
Her husband and adult daughter,
aware of the symptoms of Covid, moved her to the hut soon after she became ill
after her first dose of coronavirus vaccine.
“My husband had intended to take me
to the ANM [auxillary nurse-midwife] in the next village, but the midwife comes
only once a month. Other than that, we do not know what to do or how to get any
treatment,” says Devi.
It is not just the lack of medical
facilities that plagues the residents of these remote Indian villages. Even
information struggles to make its way there.
Devi’s village, Pagna, is 12 miles
(20km) from the highway to Badrinath, one of the four holy sites in an
important Hindu pilgrimage. Nestled in the Himalayas, the village began as a
summer getaway for British colonial officers, and has led a secluded existence
for more than a century.
With no proper roads and two
part-staffed healthcare centres for all 10 villages in the valley, the pandemic
that has so gripped India has caused great anxiety among the area’s 16,000
inhabitants.
The hospital is 24 miles away in
the town of Gopeshwar. To get there Devi would have to be taken through an
ice-cold river on foot and then carried up the hill to reach the road, which is
in such poor condition that an ambulance can only reach the first village, nine
miles away. A taxi would take two hours and cost more than £50, too much for
their meagre incomes.
Devi’s husband first took her to
the pharmacist just outside the valley, who gave paracetamol and painkillers.
The medicines didn’t help, presenting the family with a dilemma: should they
risk taking her to the hospital where there are Covid patients?
It’s estimated that more than 80%
of those living in the valley have had fever symptoms in the past five weeks.
Anxiety in this usually peaceful place is palpable.
In early May, when the disease was
at its peak, Prem Singh, 36, an activist in the village of Durmi, wrote to the
chief medical officer of Gopeshwar district asking him to send a testing team.
Despite this and several other calls for help, the first team arrived weeks
later with only rapid antigen (lateral flow test) kits.
“By the time the teams arrived, the
symptoms had already started to go down. With no provisions and zero
connectivity, everyone decided to stay at home and drink herbal concoctions.
While, thankfully, there were no casualties, and young adults in the village
were able to keep a check on every household, we are still quite shocked at the
authorities’ indifference towards us,” says Singh.
Than Singh, who works in procuring
medicinal plants for a non-profit organisation, Udyogini, has been distributing
leaves of basil and jatamansi – a member of the valerian family – for fever.
Godavari Devi is employed by a
state-funded Aangadwadi community centre, and has continued her work despite
receiving no government money for three months.
Borrowing wheat flour and raisins
from shops, she has been going door-to-door to provide food rations for
pregnant women, check temperatures and distribute basic healthcare and hygiene
kits.
“We have been asked to buy
everything out of our pocket as the authorities have promised that we will be
reimbursed. Since April, Aanganwadi has not received any funds, but we are
expected to provide supplies each month. In these times, when people do not
have any income, we are being forced to use our savings,” she says, visibly
upset.
Village heads were asked to buy
masks and sanitisers from their annual budget allocations – close to £4,000 for
Durmi. But this year’s funds, due to be sent out in April, have not arrived. So
far, the village head has spent £180 of his own money on hygiene kits.
Devi says non-Covid care has also
halted. In May, there were three births in the village, and one of the babies
died. The mother refused to be taken to hospital, knowing the gruelling
distance and that the nearest was over-capacity with Covid patients.
Mohan Negi, president of the
village heads’ union for Gopeshwar district’s 610 villages, is critical of the
neglect of villagers. A resident of Irani, the last settlement in Nijmola
valley, he says: “Unlike Durmi and Pagna, Irani has its own ANM centre and a
designated pharmacist. But our pharmacist had been sent to Haridwar on Kumbh
Mela [thought to be the world’s largest religious mass gathering] duty and,
despite the official announcement that the festival has ended, he has not been
released. The ANM has a few more villages under her and she is only able to
visit us once a month.”
Both Negi and Singh say the Covid
testing teams arrived far too late. And while vaccination for over 45s began in
India on 1 April, the first testing team arrived in Irani on 16 May, and that,
too, after much persuasion.
Dr Mahendra Singh Khati, chief
medical officer at Gopeshwar, says: “April and May have been the worst months
since the very
start of the pandemic. We have been swamped, but despite that, we ensured
mobile testing teams in all the district sub-divisions. Nijmola is a remote and
partially inaccessible valley. Taking teams would have meant a fortnight
covering each village, thus we built a makeshift centre near the valley.”
Dr Mahendra Singh Khati, chief
medical officer at Gopeshwar, says: “April and May have been the worst months
since the very
start of the pandemic. We have been swamped, but despite that, we ensured
mobile testing teams in all the district sub-divisions. Nijmola is a remote and
partially inaccessible valley. Taking teams would have meant a fortnight
covering each village, thus we built a makeshift centre near the valley.”
Khati says that in the year to
March, the hospital had had only 15 Covid fatalities but in the past two months
the number swelled to 40. Staff were falling ill, too: 69 healthcare workers
contracted Covid in April and May. He contends that the healthcare workers and
mobile testing teams did a tremendous job.
In February, the then chief
minister of Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat, visited the valley. This was
the first time in 70 years that a high-ranking state official had set foot in
it.
Rawat announced a dozen development
projects for the area, including better roads and a health centre. But these
remain promises – no work has started and the villagers continue their uphill
battle just for survival.
