Maharashtra has become a classic example of how drought impacts health care. This is the third straight year of paltry rainfall. Households in Marathwada region and other parts of the state are forced to set aside a portion of their monthly budget to buy water for daily usage. This, in turn, has affected their medical expenditure. They would rather postpone their surgeries in private hospitals — unless it’s an emergency — or opt for a government facility, knowing well what sort of treatment the latter would provide. People are willing to compromise on quality, even safety, to scrape through this particularly distressful phase. 

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The government-run hospitals in Latur, one of the worst-hit districts, are dependent on either tankers or the wells in the vicinity. To hope for a regular supply of water from municipalities is an impossible dream. The wells have either dried up or contain bare minimum for which the locals compete with each other. For them, the relatives of patients are outsiders staking claim to the neighbourhood’s meagre resources. The tanker service is at best erratic — coming once in two days or after longer intervals. Whatever water is available is spent on cleaning surgical equipment. The poor patients have to go thirsty since they can’t afford to buy bottled drinking water. The toilets remain unclean for days. Personal hygiene is a luxury done away with. Private hospitals with access to funds are buying up huge quantities of water to remain in business, but they have witnessed a noticeable decline in surgeries. In these conditions, government hospitals can do little but cut down on planned operations. They have thought up of novel ways for maximum utilisation of water. For instance, the water used for a surgeon to wash his hands before a surgery is recycled to clean bed linen. At this point the situation is precarious. Earlier, in March, hospitals in Latur had to postpone surgeries because of water shortage. The falling standards of hygiene in operation theatres and in post-operative care make both doctors and patients vulnerable to life-threatening infection. 

In Latur alone, the health of five lakh people are at stake. The dry spell has given rise to cases of jaundice, typhoid, hepatitis and gastroenteritis. Kidney stones — a fall out of lack of water consumption — is now a common ailment in certain parts of the state. The spectre of epidemic is looming large, and given the existing conditions, government hospitals do not have the means to cope with the medical crisis. 

Though private hospitals haven’t raised their rates, government clinics and hospitals are still the fall-back options for people in rural Maharashtra and remote districts. Public-private partnership seems to be the only recourse to battle the tremendous odds. The state government-sponsored health camps in Jalgaon in January was a wonderful start, with doctors from private sector sacrificing their lucrative practice to come to the aid of the poor farmers. However, Jalgaon proved to be a one-off affair that saw participation of premier health care institutes in an initiative spearheaded by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Now, it is left to the individual capacities of NGOs which are extremely limited. The need of the hour is the state marshalling and mobilising its resources and that of corporates which are willing to come forward at this critical juncture. What is at stake are the lives of people who are completely dependent on aid, having lost their crops and livestock to the drought. The harrowing state these helpless people find themselves in calls for drastic action. Leaving everything to the state government, which is already burdened with multiple crises, cannot be a good idea.