SHILLONG, July 18: As vaccine hesitancy in Meghalaya refuses to die down, state health officials in a revised strategy have begun to fan out to the rural areas for a dialogue with the obdurate village folks in the hope of neutralising their negative mind set.
In the first leg of this exercise in ground zero, top health officials lent ears to some of the villagers in West Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi districts to understand their points of view. Although they did not make any remarkable dent, the officials said they would continue this drive for countering the negative propaganda.
Principal Secretary, Health, Sampath Kumar who led the team of District officials and health workers, told The Shillong Times here on Sunday that listening to the reasons why the people are reluctant to take the jab, was in itself a learning experience.
Sample this: Out of 30-40 people the Health department team met in a village only 2-3 were found to be vaccinated. Each person who refused vaccination has his or her story to tell. “It is important for us to listen to each one and deal with misinformation or disinformation at the individual level. One person said she has gastric problems and worried that vaccination might aggravate it. The District Medical and Health Officer explained that most doctors suffer from gastric problems but they have all been vaccinated and there is nothing to suggest that vaccination aggravates any ailment,” he narrated.
“This time the District Health team listened while people spoke. Listening with empathy is the key to communication. One person said he is hesitant about the vaccination since he works in the field and it might affect his ability to use his vaccinated hand. His doubts were immediately cleared. The method of communication and who the communicator is, is as important as the information being disseminated and also dispelling the myths and misinformation already ingrained in peoples’ minds,” Sampath Kumar said, adding that the state is fighting a huge misinformation war and all medical officers, Block Programme Managers including the leaders of Self Help Groups (SHGs) will have to be deployed to clear doubts on a one-on-one level.
The Principal Secretary said, “We had to patiently explain to people the meaning of a pandemic and how we are in the middle of one. We had to remind people that in the 1920s when a pandemic hit the world, people including those in these hills hid in caves. That was isolation/quarantine then. In that pandemic 70 million people died of which 40 million were from India. Life expectancy then was 25 years. With great effort and scientific progress we now have vaccines to fight different viruses. Life expectancy has now gone up to 62.5 to 68 years,” Sampath explained to the villages of Nongthliew village within the newly created district of Mairang where vaccination is zero.
The team explained to villagers that not taking the vaccine means having to deal with new mutant variants which will affect children. The team illustrated to the villagers with facts and figures that in the second wave the death rate was five times that of the first Covid wave and nearly every family has suffered.
Pointing to the manner in which the Village Employment Councils (VECs) are today successfully working in implementing the MGNREGA scheme, Kumar said Meghalaya is the second state in the country where the MNREGA scheme is working well because people have taken ownership of it. In 2015-16 the allocation for the scheme was less than Rs 300 crore. Today the amount has gone up to Rs 1500 crore. This has happened because officials of the C&RD department traverse the length and breadth of Meghalaya and interact with people at the Block level.
“While the VECs are now quite robust and they make their plans according to the funds available, it is in the health sector that the biggest worry is. There is no Village Health Council (VHC) to take ownership of the health spending, health delivery and infrastructure. A VHC would have been helpful in organizing the transport of pregnant women for institutional delivery. The VHC would strengthen people’s participation in healthcare. If we don’t have VHCs we will not be able to deal with future pandemics,” the Harvard trained, Sampath Kumar elaborated. He said VHCs will soon be created as pilot projects first in one or two areas and replicated after fine tuning them.
