Does lack of sanitation services affect your health and community?

Yes. I am living in a village and there is lack of sanitation as the public use the vacant sites and the road sides for toileting and due to the reasons the common public and the road users are affected and the health problems are cropping up. It was strongly suggested to the local administrations to construct public toilets and initiatives were taken up and number of public toilets were being constructed and opend for the public use. The water scarcity and maintenance of the clean toilets are the next problem where is the public hygine and cleanliness of the toilets are big questions on the public health and sanitation. The public toilet users do not follow the ethics of clean toilets for fellowmen usage and the untidiness and unclean toilets are the causes for disease affecting the community health in this area. No sufficient water supply is available for cleaning the toilets and no other alternate arrangements are available for maintaining the public toilets in this area. Therefore once again the women, children and the adults are using the road sides and vacant land sides for toileting and creating a huge public health problem to the local community.

The local self government or the public health administration could not do much with this problem and the public cooperation for public health is very much lacking due to the reasons of atrocities and adamancy attitude of the users say the public. The local public are of the attitude of poor sanitation and personal health aspects and the lack of space for in-house toilets and sanitation due to the reasons of bifurcation and trifurcation of the property buildings, permitting the public to construct the house buildings without toilet by the local administration are some of the permanent facts underlying the public health issues. The underground drainage system is not available in this village. The governments are not willing to invest huge amount for the sake and local and public sanitation is a dream for us. In case of epidemics and water borne or air borne diseases there is no immediate public health care is given by the private or public health institutions in this area. The degradable and non degradable garbage are not removed instead collected in heap in one place and the dust and plastic bags are flying in the air and the moving particles cause public health disturbances and we are not able to live in this area. In the neibhourhood area many people rare in open place the cattle, sheeps and chiken, pigs and other types of birds and we are vulnerable for air bound diseases and cause health hazards including swine flu, dengue fever etc.

The public health authorities are negligent and they are not taking any stern steps to educate the public or create awareness on public health issues and hence even at this modern age we are not able to get good air, clean water and pollution free environment and this is our fate.

My area of social work on global mental health is lined with environment, sanitation, education for rural women and maternity care mainly mental health care for women and children at the primary level and providing services to the mental health survivors at my local level.

Many houses are not provided with toilets and even the pregnant women and others also need to use the open lands and road sides for toileting and the mental stress and agony caused to them is an untold misery for them. Most of them use the stones,waste papers and piece of waste cloths for cleaning which cause them number of skin diseases and they do not go to any doctors for the treatment. The prolonged skin eruptions and irritations cause them a permanent mental aberration and they live in irritation which is reflected on their irritated behaviour in the social life.

Scarcity of water is the main reason for lack sanitation in rural areas and public toilets are not kept clean and tidy for the usage of next persons. The conditions of toilets in schools is very bad and no school authorities are considering the issue as priority in the health care sector of the students especially the girl student and from my observation number of girls are not urinating during school hours due the said reasons of cleanliness of the toilets at the school premises and prone to number of various types urinary track infection, stone forming in the kidney and ulcer in the vaginal path are some of the major problems in the biological ends of women are leading to one or more types of psychological and emotional unrest to the minds either directly or indirectly and cause a permanent injury to their biological and mental health. Therefore I am very keen in this area of creating awareness and connecting the local agencies to construct toilets in the schools and public toilets with continued water supply at the village levels and for the sustained maintenance of the toilets at the domestic levels and at the public aminiety centre levels for the good health of women and children.

For all my activities of social work through the Wellbeing Foundation, a registered trust body authored and managed by me for the cause of mental health and well being of the citizens at the local level I am depending on public donations, philanthropy and resource supports from like minded and funding of national and international agencies and I invite your esteemed support in this regard to continue my social work for global mental health and related issues and share the global liability of every society.

In partnership with the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), World Pulse is collecting personal stories outlining women’s experiences and recommendations on sustainable and equitable development for presentation at the Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.

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