Many traders consider the rules to be helpful

By Yukta Mudgal

licences once in five years.”

Only few medicines are available at the

For the rest ple are advised to go to private hospitals | Courtesy: Vignesh P ing Rs 300 every week is hard.”

Sagayama Mary, an ASHA worker at the Nayandahalli slum, said: “We go to every house every month to know about their diseases and to check their condition. We also make lists of tablets the residents want.”

Mani Shankar, a health inspector at KG Halli PHC, informed The Observer: “We go every 15 days or once a month and ask them about their needs. If we cannot provide enough medicines, we write to higher officials and make sure they get them in a week. We recommend a hospital if the situation is serious.”

Divya S, a doctor at the PHC, said: “The slum people are happy and ask us frequently to conduct camps in their slums. Moreover, they are receiving medicines…. We have built a positive relationship with the slum people.”

When The Observer asked PHC personnel and ASHA work- ers about the problems faced by slum-dwellers, they denied of any, and ended the conversation. About health surveys conducted in slums, Bala Raju, Technical Director at the Karnataka Slum Development Board, said: “We were given a total of Rs 100 crore last year for roads, houses, infrastructure, water facilities and sanitization. This year, we have been given only Rs 75 crore and don’t know how we should manage. As slums and its residents increase every year, we requested more allocation but haven’t received any reply yet.”

Queries mailed to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare by The Observer went unanswered.

According to research paper on ‘Health Issues in Bangalore Slums’ by BMC public health, slums, home to nearly one billion people worldwide, are expanding at an exponential rate. Poor living conditions not only affect the health of slum-dwellers but also challenges health surveys.

Explaining the need for regular health check-ups, Srinivas R, resident medical officer at Victoria Hospital, said: “Not only slum people, but all of us should go for a medical checkup once in a month. Earlier, once in three months would suffice, but post-pandemic people have become less immune.”

As slum-dwellers reside in poor sanitary conditions, they should go for check-ups every mocnth. But considering their social-economic conditions, they should go a check-up every six months.

Rajendran Prabhakar, executive director of Maargha, an NGO working for welfare of slum-dwellers and deprived communities, said: “The government treats slum residents as second-grade citizens…, as burden. It’s the government’s duty to inform people about their schemes, but they don’t do that. How can the government complain that the residents are not visiting PHCs to avail of benefits? Due to this, the slum residents have lost their trust in the government prefer private hospitals.”

According to the above mentioned research paper, a slum is defined as “a group of individuals that live under the same roof that lack one or more of the following conditions: access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, sufficient living space, the durability of housing and secure tenure”. vindhya.p@iijnm.org