Residents of the beautiful region Wayanad, Kerala, have to suffer with the two unyielding realities of limited health care and increasing human-animal conflicts. In this case also, there’s a hope that the Lok Sabha by-election would usher in some kind of salvation. Situated against the mist-cloaked mountains, Thamarassery Mountain Pass – the sole road to Kozhikode – has become a passage to time losses, especially when urgency calls.
This region has only two primary health centers, serving nearly 600,000 people, where the medical infrastructure is woefully inadequate; therefore, there are high hopes from the political attention from figures like Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
Unlike the rest of Kerala, Wayanad found it difficult to provide enough medical care to its population; the district was facing acute shortage as far as health care facility was concerned, especially in the time of emergencies.
Kalpetta General Hospital is the district’s principal referral hospital, admitting an average of 10 emergency cases every day, many of whom have to be shifted to Kozhikode, a distance of about 70 kilometers from Kalpetta. The road between the two places is narrow and prone to landslides, so patients in emergencies wait out for a protracted, nerve-wracking period.
Doctors said the center is not equipped to respond to the major emergency or accident cases, and necessary health care infrastructure in the region is still underdeveloped. There is no medical college in the district. The given facilities are not sufficient enough to provide the specific sorts of medical care. The local residents along with doctors have complained that humans were being killed due to the medical mismanagement in the district.
Longing For Medical College
Hope lies in the promise of better healthcare infrastructure for the residents. Locals have long rallied for establishing a medical college and a super-speciality hospital that can meet the healthcare demands of the population. The sudden landslides in August that claimed over 400 lives brought issues to the forefront again.
The local demand did not find any medical college emerging. The efforts of the state government in that direction, such as a tertiary care center in Mananthavady, were not enough to meet the requirements for health in the region. According to doctors in the region, even though a medical college emerged in Mananthavady, it lacked infrastructure to handle serious medical emergencies. For serious cases, people have to reach Kozhikode, which takes several hours, causing additional wastage of time and, in some instances, death.
There are growing human-animal conflicts in the district apart from healthcare issues. Wild animals, such as elephants and tigers, are increasingly invading human settlements. Such invasions post a grave threat to human life as well as agriculture. The Kerala Economic Review reported that in 2022-2023, there were as many as 8,873 incidents of human-animal conflicts, resulting in 98 deaths and 1,275 injuries. Such dangers face native people like Nisha S., a member of the Mullu Kurumba tribe, in their daily efforts to protect crops and homes from wildlife invasions.
Albeit efforts at electric fencing and dogs that holler at the moon, animals keep breaching into villages, lured by food sources such as jackfruit and paddy. The impacts of these attacks are manifold because many of the villages lie isolated and far flung from their respective communities, hence no access to medical care.
Hope For Change
Before the November bypolls in Wayanad, residents hope that the new MP will at last address the pressing concerns. Priyanka Gandhi has focused on resolving these issues and promised improvements in the areas of healthcare, human-animal conflict management, and transport infrastructure.
Rahul Gandhi had vowed to the district over these issues, particularly about setting up a medical college and abolishing the night traffic ban on the Kozhikode-Kollegal highway. Those promises have, however, been sharply criticized by the local people for not doing enough when he was the MP.
Another area of controversy has been the night ban on traffic, implemented in 2009 for reasons of wildlife. It has effectively curtailed movement between Kerala and Karnataka to the detriment of the livelihood of residents who trade through this route. Political leaders like Karnataka deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar have reportedly offered to withdraw the ban, but political stalwarts from the opposite camp argue that even such a ban is necessary for environmental protection.
Can The Gandhis Do Anything?
The question of course remains-the Gandhis, with their muscle political power, will they be able to bring about the changes that this district so badly needs? While some call Priyanka a ray of hope for the people, others say this is the family prioritizing national issues and not the local ones of that region.
As the bypolls draw close, Wayanad waits in bated breath for a resolution to its plight, hoping that this time around, people will listen to the voices and real change will come to the district, long left behind.
MUST READ | First Combined Air India-Vistara Flight Departs Doha For Mumbai
