Ailing in Alang

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Ailing in Alang

The Indian Express 3 March 2002

The notorious ship-breaking yard has around 55,000 labourers-and two medical

centres, says Shefali Nautiyal

During the day, the only women you can spot at the Alang Ship-breaking Yard are

vegetable vendors. But as night approaches, dozens of women, clad in sarees and

salwar Kameezes, their perfume announcing their presence, pop up at the tiny

hair saloons and pan shops in the area. The labourers, drunk to their gills,

stretch out in submission.

Prostitution is as old as the hills in Alang, where 98 per cent of the labourers

are migrants. Not surprisingly, then, the labourers are a high-risk group

vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS.

Alang is a worker's and a doctor's nightmare. The notoriously filthy

ship-breaking yard breeds a host of sexual, respiratory and abdominal diseases.

But specialised AIDS awareness and prevention are a laugh in a place which has

just one private doctor and one hospital, run by the Red Cross. That's two

medical centres for around 55,000-odd migrant labourers.

Volunteers at the Bhavnagar Blood Bank, which has been running Project AIDS in

Alang for the past three years, say there is no HIV-testing facility in the

town, which has a " very high " population of high risk behaviour. " Since there

has been no survey conducted, we don't have exact figures but there do exist a

good number of HIV positive patients in Alang, " says Dr Niloo Vaishnav,

chairperson of the Bhavnagar Blood Bank. " Last year, we found 2,424 STD patients

and 19 HIV positive patients. But these were the ones who approached us

voluntarily. "

Dr Amin Hamidani, Alang's lone private practitioner, paints a far more alarming

picture. " At least 50 per cent of Alang's population could be infected with

AIDS, " claims Hamidani.

But then, AIDS isn't the only killer here-sometimes, respiratory and water-borne

diseases do the job as well. " The workers work with gas cutters and inhale toxic

gases every day. Almost 80 per cent have respiratory problems at one stage or

the other, " says Hamidani. Another common affliction found among the workers is

gastroentitis, he adds.

The culprit for that can be easily spotted: the uncovered water vessels outside

every shanty. No shanty has a tap of its own, and workers rely on a private

water tanker that supplies 300 litres of water everyday. " Water is the biggest

problem since there is an acute shortage. We are forced to drink salty water all

the time, " says Govindhai Pande, a migrant labourer from Uttar Pradesh.

" No one bothers to clean up the dirt here. It has been like this for so many

years, " says Prabhu Singh, a labourer from Bihar who has been suffering from

acute abdominal pain for the past few weeks. " I can't even ask for leave as the

work will go to someone else, " he says.

" Look at the tin shanties. There is no electricity so we can't have a fan or a

bulb or television. After sunset, except for the streetlights and the shops, the

entire place resembles a ghost town, " adds Pande. The bosses may return home but

" no one bothers about how we are living, " he adds. The workers toil with the

bare minimum of protective gear: rubber gloves and helmets that don't have glass

covers. Incidents of tanker blasts or cylinder blasts no longer seem to make

news. " Leg and head injuries are the most common types of injuries. I never run

out of patients. " Says Hamidani.

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Dr.Jagdish Harsh ( jharsh@... )

Director of Administration and Operations

François-Xavier Bagnoud (INDIA) ( www.fxb.org )

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