Experts recommend improving primary healthcare amid climate hazards

Repetitive natural hazards following global warming have exacerbated healthcare challenges in Bangladesh, particularly when poor communities are exposed to climate vulnerability.

Disseminating a study titled "Voices of the Grassroots: Effects of Climate Change on Health," researchers said that the rate of stroke has increased, especially in river-erosion-prone areas, while pregnant women in the country's southern region are at great risk of frequent preeclampsia due to high salinity.

Non-government organisation Bangladesh Health Watch (BHW) organised the dissemination at Brac University Auditorium on Sunday.

Md Shamim Hayder Talukder, chief executive officer at the not-for-profit organisation Eminence Associates for Social Development, presented the findings of a study conducted in Satkhira, Barguna, Kurigram, Sirajganj, Sunamganj, Chattogram, Dhaka, and Netrokona. The study outcomes represent interviews with at least 240 climate-vulnerable people.

Various types of skin diseases, fatigue, eyesight problems, reproductive health problems, diabetes, hypertension, jaundice, and diarrhea were found prevalent in the climate-affected areas, Shamim said.

He added that climate-vulnerable people, especially the elderly, women, and children, suffer from poor nutrition when the quality of diets falls due to the decline of their financial status resulting from natural disasters.

The study recommends improving health services at the grassroots with the establishment of more mobile community clinics. It also suggests reducing the healthcare out-of-pocket costs of vulnerable communities using social quintile-based subsidies, improving diagnosis and treatment for climate change-related diseases, and establishing public-private partnerships for the effective delivery of primary healthcare services, among others.

Professor Ainun Nishat, of the Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research at the Brac University, suggested further studies on the climate change-related health impacts with causal as well as scientific explanations by experts.

Gawher Nayeem Wahra, member secretary of the Foundation for Disaster Forum, warned that rainwater harvesting to minimise drinking water shortage around salinity-prone areas at asbestos tin-shed roofs otherwise poses serious health risks which need to be stopped.

Wameq A Raza, the health and nutrition specialist at the World Bank in Bangladesh, said climate change was contributing to air pollution, particularly in urban areas, and health hazards due to air pollution needed to be studied further.

BHW Working Group Member AJ Faisel chaired the programme. BHW Convener Professor Ahmed Mushtaque Raza Chowdhury, Naripokkho Project Director Samia Afrin, BHW Programme Director Shaikh Masudul Alam, Mahruba Khanam, representatives from the Directorate General of Health Services, and journalists, among others, also spoke.