Editor,
For pregnant women the current pandemic raises a lot of red flags but especially her mental health status as this has a bearing on the child growing inside of her. This is a particularly stressful period and much of that is caused by what they see or hear from the media. Many are anxious because of the phobia due to social distancing that is necessary to be followed. Hence, it is all the more reason to make maternal mental health a priority because it has an impact on the health of both mother and child.
The current events may have a psychological disturbance on pregnant women and this may result in inadequate pre-natal care, low birth weight and pre-term delivery which in the long run may lead to increased health risks for the child. This is especially true of women from lower socio-economic backgrounds who suffer the added burden of managing their households during this period of economic instability. Poverty and limited access to resources further complicate the issue.
Hence it is important that pregnant women are provided access to mental health counseling and treatment from professionals who should be posted in every maternity hospital and health centres in the state.
Yours etc.,
Clarienia Wandaka Wahlang,
Via email
States imperiled
Editor,
Reverse migration of thousands of migrant labourers is a serious setback to the state governments’ covid-19 containment efforts. After the return of tens of thousands of migrant workers to their villages, the coronavirus is rapidly moving into rural areas. A huge number of positive cases are being reported from rural areas of Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh. The reverse migration of workers is likely to boomerang on governments and economies alike. With insufficient health and economic infrastructure we could be inviting community transmission of covid-19.
The government’s failure to control the exodus of migrants has proved enormously costly to the states concerned. The high rate of covid-19 infection among migrant workers who have returned to their native states is a serious setback to the states’ containment attempts. A large number of returnees are testing positive and they are taking the disease burden to their native states. This will put enormous strain on the health infrastructure in the states and pose a serious threat to the containment protocols in rural India. Random testing in Bihar revealed that one in four workers who returned from Delhi were infected with the coronavirus. Around 2.2 million from Bihar migrate to other states.
UP, Orissa, Rajasthan, west Bengal, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh also face a similar crisis. When the migrants reach their states, quarantine facilities are not arranged for them. They are directly sent to their homes. Consequently, they transmit the disease to their relatives and others they come in contact with.
Prolonged illness and subsequent health complications will adversely affect their lives and livelihoods. The state governments must realise the gravity of the situation and take this issue as priority.
Bilateral activities and measures to provide basic essentials and health facilities for the cash- strapped, unemployed migrant workers would have ensured that they did not have to resort to returning home. The governments should have ramped up testing and arranged quarantine facilities for the migrant labourers during the lockdown.
Yours etc.,
Venu GS,
Via e mail
COVID mess in Gujarat
Editor,
The Gujarat High Court has correctly condemned the supreme callousness of the Gujarat Government in handling the Covid-crisis relegating the state to one of the worst performing states in India. Not only have the judges termed the state as, “sinking Titanic,” but they have compared the pathetic state of affairs in Ahmedabad civil hospital to, “worse than a dungeon!” What better can be said of a State where companies having “right” connections in the corridors of power can unhesitatingly supply artificial mechanised breathing machines as “ventilators!” What a cruel, fatal play with Gujarati lives! Also Gujarat High Court deserves special praise for exposing the state’s artificial control of infection data so that the sorry state of affairs of Gujarat do not suffer a further beating! In this pathetic scenario it can be asked why only the West Bengal, TMC-led Government and Mamata Banerjee are being targeted instead of pointing out the insensitive handling of the crisis by the BJP-led Gujarat government? Central teams can be despatched at the drop of a hat without even informing the Bengal government when the fact remained that Gujarat was performing much worse than Bengal and most other states ever since the pandemic broke out.
It is obvious why the Gujarat governor did not adopt the same intrusive standards as his Bengal counterpart did or why BJP-led Central dispensation was “so worried” about the lives of people in Bengal instead of taking Gujarat government to task! Firstly Gujarat is not only led by BJP, it is also carrying the “modern progressive developed” legacy of Narendra Modi who had projected the state as the “Role model of India,” in the scale of “development!” Won’t the image of BJP, Modi and Gujarat suffer if the blatant inefficiency of the state gets exposed? After all the myth of “Vibrant Gujarat” needs to be protected and also sold at any cost, even at the cost of Gujarati lives! So much for “Gujarati Asmita”! And more importantly West Bengal still remains one of the last bastions for BJP to be breached! And just to show Mamata Banerjee and TMC government in poor light and reap political dividend in the upcoming Bengal assembly polls, a very shrewd campaign of tarnishing the image of the current dispensation of Bengal became the order of the day!
If minimum sense of shame still exists within BJP and Centre, they should not only stop character assassination of Bengal; they should also pay more attention towards improving the state of affairs in Gujarat.
Yours etc.,
Kajal Chatterjee,
Via email