PREVENTATIVE HEALTHCARE FOR SLUM DWELLERS

Knowing fully well that i have no relative or child in the slums that am aware of,i wonder whether i should write this plea.For there is nothing in it for me other than the satisfaction of having raised the point for greater preventive healthcare for the most at risk of diseases.

It is a well known fact that water-borne diseases account for a major percentage of diseases affecting the slum dwellers of Nairobi.The curative treatment of such diseases almost a superficial addressing of the plight when the problem is really at its worst.Our bane is the curse of Sisyphus (in Greek mythology was a king of Ephyra)punished for chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever.We are doomed to spend more on curative healthcare and unless we take Dida's advice and dwelt on preventative approach to healthcare we shall forever be in the vortex of ill health.

Modern medicine has discovered vaccines able to confer immunity for a certain time period against some tropical diseases.But the cost of such are just beyond the reach of more than half of the majority of the urban dwellers who live in slums.(In fact Nairobi is composed of a big portion of the populace living in the slums while a minority live in relative comfort of the estates.i guess you could say Nairobi is one big slum.)

So the pitch am making is this,the government should look at the root cause of ill-health in the most at risk(read slum dwellers) and tackle the problem once and for all.Many research have been conducted on the root cause of the problems and we need not fund any other study but rather implement the findings from those studies.Failure to that the government needs to urgently look at how they can subsidize the cost of vaccination of some of these diseases like Typhoid for the the slum dwellers.A pilot project in one of the many slums could be a start and a pointer of the feasibility of a more broad based expansion of the program.This will address a need that is felt,yet not a soul speaks to highlight it,or is it because we have nothing in it for ourselves?

The very slum dwellers compose a major portion of the most active members of the workforce for the industries and construction sites and deserve to benefit from the economic growth they have so much helped to ensure.But as much as we may think that it is the concern of the slum dwellers to ensure good health,the county governments should provide communal sanitation and water supply as a matter of priority to make the places more habitable.These,together with continuous health education sessions through the media that the people understand most will help to improve the health of the nation.With an ensuing better economic growth through lower spending on curative health.So the choice is clear,but what can i do?am just a dreamer. Come to think of it,why should we have slums in the first place.Hhhhmmmm!!!!!