The Hindu 17.09.2009
Corporation drive to promote hygienic practices in slums
Special Correspondent
Photo: K. Ananthan
FOR BETTER HEALTH: Corporation health workers on a door-to-door campaign to encourage use of public toilets at Kamarajapuram in the city on Tuesday. —
COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore Corporation has launched a drive to promote hygienic practices in the slums in the city.
The main focus is on eliminating open defecation and promoting the use of public toilets constructed in these areas for the below poverty line families.
Led by Assistant City Health Officer R. Sumathi, health officials and urban health nurses went on a sensitisation drive in the slums at Kamarajapuram on Tuesday. The drive would continue in this area and would be carried out in other slums also.
Dr. Sumathi said Corporation Commissioner Anshul Mishra ordered the drive after seeing the conditions at the Kamarajapuram slum.
The Commissioner wanted to know why open defecation continued despite provision of a public toilet and a pay-and-use toilet in the locality.
Seeing a health hazard, he wanted the health wing to educate them on dangers such as hookworms that caused anaemia.
The health team took a slide projector to the slum to show how human excreta mixed in rain water and hookworms in it entered through the skin of the soles when people walked barefooted in such areas.
The hookworms first get into the lungs. From there they come out through sputum while coughing. Young children who did not how to spit this out, swallowed it, the health official said.
“This is the way how the hookworm gets into the small intestine and draws blood from it. It injects an anti-coagulant to prevent the blood from clotting. While the hookworms suck in only that much amount of blood they need, the rest passes through stools. This causes anaemia in people, especially children, Dr. Sumathi explained. No amount of iron tablets would be enough to treat anaemia in these cases.
Therefore, the Corporation provided de-worming tablets to children in the slums and tried to educate them and their parents on hygienic practices such as using toilets.
