the goan I network
MARGAO
Hundreds of migrant workers hailing from the malaria-endemic areas of Odisha and Jharkhand have begun descending on the Goa fishing hub, Cutbona, ahead of the new fishing season, beginning from Thursday.
But the arrival of the migrant workers has thrown up the same old questions “ whether the authorities concerned, including Health and Fisheries, are geared up to handle the migrant workforce and stop the spread of vector-borne diseases in and around the fishing hub.
As things stand today, only a lone surveillance worker, attached to the Balli Primary Health Centre is posted at the Cutbona fishing jetty to screen the migrant workers. One question that remains unanswered is whether a lone health worker is suffice to carry out screening when migrant workers have been coming in droves at the jetty.
Unlike the past, when the Balli PHC sanitary inspector Tulsidas Naik used to depute teams of workers at Cutbona days ahead of the new fishing season, such an arrangement is absent at the jetty this time. Tulsidas’ successor, Keshav Pagi, who assumed office just a couple of days ago, is believed to have not even taken a round of the jetty to see for himself the magnitude of the problem.
When The Goan called the Balli Primary Health Officer Dr Mamta Kakodkar to shed light on the health arrangements put in place at Cutbona, she said a regular surveillance worker is posted at the jetty to screen the workers. “Our field worker will assist the surveillance worker on alternate days,” she said, while virtually saying that PHC cannot deploy all its work force at Cutbona when their services are required at other places.
To a query, Dr Kakodkar pointed out the lone surveillance worker has managed to screen around 24 workers till Tuesday at the Cutbona jetty. But whether the lone surveillance worker will be able to manage the magnitude of the workforce is a question that is staring at the Health Services.
Questions are also doing the rounds at the Cutbona jetty whether the Fisheries Department, which is now the owner of the Cutbona fishing jetty, is playing its role in getting the migrant workers to the health workers for screening.
“Unless the Fisheries Department directs the boat owners operating from the jetty to get their workers screened, the ongoing screening exercise may not produce the desired result,” sources said, adding “last year, the Balli PHC had managed to screen around 1300-workers at Cutbona jetty when an estimated 4000-odd workers were hired by the boat operators to work on their vessels.”
The district authorities, sources said, have been treating the Fisheries Department with kid gloves, even though it had been found wanting in discharging its responsibilities at the jetty over the years.
While there’s been no dearth of directions from the district authorities to the Fisheries Department over the years to put its act together and tackle the issues of health and sanitation posed by the migrant workers, the ground reality has not changed for the better.
Around four years ago, dengue had claimed the life of a local resident. Since then, dengue has been raising its ugly head in and around the Cutbona jetty “ the home for hundreds of fishing vessels. That a couple of migrant workers had tested positive for dengue and malaria right at the jetty indicates that the inbuilt mechanism to screen the migrant workers at the jetty has eluded the authorities.
