The Hindu : Death by fahrenheit

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 25, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Death by fahrenheit

INDIA'S PUBLIC HEALTH system has failed its mid-summer test yet again. The 700-plus-and-still-counting helpless victims of heat stroke lost to the fury of the sun are yet another sad testimony to the lack of an appropriate human intervention system to counter the harsh consequences of natural phenomena. Given the broad predictability of the unrelenting heat wave that the country is experiencing, the high number of deaths reflects the low level of preparedness both by Governments and by the general public. The annual recurrence of this summer death dance, its spread across several States and the scale in which these lives are snatched away should pave the way for increased attention by policy-makers as well as public service organisations to counter this cause of death. In their intensity and the sense of inevitability, India's summer deaths take a heavy toll. The degree of the calamity calls for extraordinary preparation and responses similar to that of managing a national disaster. This requires a transformation of the role of Governments, which hold the primary responsibility of ensuring safe living, to a more proactive one. The advances made by the country in science and technology, particularly meteorology, will mean nothing if the early warning signals are not acted upon. In that sense, the blame for these deaths should be placed in a larger measure on poor human responses than on the oft-invoked excuse of nature's fury.

Nature's incredible machine, the human body, has its limits of tolerance. The march of science has enabled a better understanding of the human body, the way in which it can be meaningfully utilised as well as the precautions required to prevent it from failure. With a certain level of public awareness about the working of the human body, its response mechanism and a ready knowledge of the elementary precautions, this alarming number of heat stroke deaths should have been a matter of the past. However, on this count, individual ignorance has been fatal. It is in this role of dissemination of information that there is an urgent need for Governments to go on a proactive overdrive. Forewarned about the heat wave, the public health agencies would have served the cause better with vigorous awareness campaigns aimed at educating the people on prevention. Public authorities could have brought in a major change from the past through minor initiatives such as providing relief centres, instilling the knowledge of simple precautions and educating the public on the steps to be taken to prevent a death in the sun.

Public intervention takes yet another dimension. This is in suitably equipping hospitals and institutions both to treat victims and to spread basic first-aid techniques among the public. A sustained programme aimed at educating the public on the importance of an immediate response mechanism is crucial, given the rapidity with which death descends upon a heat stroke victim. There are also long-term issues that have to be addressed. Individual vulnerability — economic and social — as well as environmental degradation are factors that cannot be taken out of any meaningful public intervention mechanism. As these factors that accentuate the fury of nature can be addressed through proper planning and implementation, they deserve the highest consideration of the authorities. At the level of national policy, it is also time to re-consider the governmental thinking that a heat wave is not a natural calamity. In their visible severity, heat waves may not match earthquakes or floods, but as they continue to take the lives of people, especially those from the unprotected sections, the cause for an effective public response system will be served well by a comprehensive action plan charted out by the country's health authorities.

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