Calamity exposes poor medical infrastructure in munnar

MUNNAR: The devastating flood has once again brought to the fore certain key infrastructure inadequacies of the state’s premium hill station. A general hospital, owned by Tata, is the only hospital in the area and the nearest specialty hospital is Government Medical College Hospital, Kottayam, which is a whopping 136km away from Munnar.
The recent flood and landslides have killed 18 and critically injured 34 in Munnar alone.There are residents who believe that human casualty and damage could have been reduced had there been proper treatment facilities in the region. They demand that when the rebuilding of Munnar takes place, priority should be given to address healthcare infrastructure.
“You can blame it on connectivity issues. But no medical team has visited this place since flood and landslides hit us. The private hospital is not affordable to the majority, who are labourers. Other hospitals are Devikulam community health centre and taluk hospital at Adimali, both ill equipped,” said Pradeep, a taxi driver at Munnar.
He also said that though one of the most popular tourist destinations, Munnar does not have a single clean public toilet. Local tourist guides said that they have experiences of tourists suing their firm for lack of hygienic public toilets. “We are forced to take tourists to clean restaurants so that they can use toilets,” said a tour guide.
The government was constructing toilets as part of the preparations for ‘kurinji’ season when the calamity struck the place.
Idukki collector K Jeevan Babu said that infrastructure issues would be addressed after making immediate arrangements to ensure safety. “The current priority is to clean the area. Army medical teams were sent to remote tribal settlements like Edamalakkudy. Regarding hospitals, we are planning to revamp community health centre at Chithirapuram with better facilities,” he said.