Doctors providing assistance asked to leave Thar

Published December 12, 2014
Famine has triggered large scale migration of marginalised groups in Thar. – Photo by author
Famine has triggered large scale migration of marginalised groups in Thar. – Photo by author

HYDERABAD: Professors, doctors and post-graduate students, who were visiting famine-hit Tharparkar district of Sindh to provide healthcare assistance and to determine causes of malnutrition, are asked by administration and police to leave the area on Thursday.

Malnutrition, according to doctors, is the leading cause of a large number of deaths of newborns in Tharparkar and such deaths continue to take place with doctors working at district headquarter hospital of Mithi attributing them to reasons like pre-term labour cases, repeated pregnancies and asphyxia.

Also read: Qaim dismisses child deaths from Thar famine

These experts from Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) Jamshoro were bifurcated in different groups and dispatched to Islamkot, Mithi, Nagarparkar, Chhachhro and Mithi.

The team had reached Tharparkar on Wednesday under leadership of LUMHS vice-chancellor Dr Noshad A Shaikh with professors of different faculties of LUMHS including a dean. The team members were otherwise scheduled to stay there for some days in different areas.

“I have received a message from CM house to leave Tharparkar immediately,” said a doctor, who claimed he had spoken to VC Noshad A Shaikh before he left for Karachi from Chhachhro.

VC and some senior doctors were at a health facility in rural area of Chhachhro, considered to be worst affected in this long dry spell. They were busy in their work when he received that message eventually leading to the team's departure from the area.

“I saw some policemen present in that premises who were there to communicate the message. Policemen were there until we finally left,” alleged the doctor who left after VC’s departure. Other team members were contacted over phone by their focal persons about abrupt change in the progrmame.

“It’s on our insistence that VC told us why he is winding up the visit so abruptly and leaving although he had come with his family members,” he said. “We told him that we are having a large team of doctors and professors besides over 100 students who need to be briefed about it,” the doctor added.

It is learnt that while LUMHS management had taken governor house on board, the CM house did not respond to correspondence made by university administration regarding visit in question which was apparently a sign of disapproval.

“VC sahib is now being called to the CM house and he is due to meet him sometime tonight after reaching Karachi,” claimed a doctor, who also spoke to VC.

“We were quite harassed and demoralised by the way we were treated,” said a surgeon.

Know more: PPP leader admits death of nearly 300 Thar children this year

For the last three years, Tharparkar is in the grip of drought. Economy of the area is largely dependent on monsoon rains that help its residents grow millet and beans. But the prolonged drought has caused to migration of population mainly from vulnerable groups like Kohlis, Meghwars and Bheel along with their livestock on a large scale.

The migration among these communities is considered seasonal and a normal phenomenon but recent drought has made it unusual.

According to a senior doctor, the visiting team collected money on their own to buy clothing, sweaters, shawls and other items for which around close to Rs1 million were pooled.

The LUMHS team has left the goods, commodities and medicines in Mithi as they couldn't carry it with them back. These are to be distributed through some local contacts like Prof Dr Bikha Ram, who teaches medicine in LUMHS and belongs to Tharparkar, among affected communities.

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