It’s official now. Bangalore has been identified as one of the dirtiest cities globally, in one of the recent articles published in the NewYork Times. The article mentions that the recent garbage crisis has filled Bangalore with putrefying trash.
Now, while the city is struggling to ease its garbage and recycling crisis, health experts feel that the city’s dirty image may affect medi-tourism, as health and hygiene go hand in hand.
Over the last two to three months, the city has been converted from Garden and IT city to a garbage city. Thus, the NewYork Times article rightfully portrays a dirty picture of Bangalore, asserts Dr Sudarshan Ballal, medical director, Manipal Health Enterprises. “Garbage does not just makes a city dirty and stinky, but also leads to health hazards. It helps breed mosquito, flies, cockroaches and rats, causing dengue, malaria, typhoid, jaundice and plague in the long run,” he goes on to add.
Temporarily, this dirty image of Bangalore may cause a setback in medi-tourism. However, it’s time that civic authorities and citizens take this article as a wake-up call and take steps to clean up the city, before more damages are caused, Ballal believes.
Take the case of 23-year-old Anna Joel from Tanzania, who accompanied her mother Esther Peter, a stomach cancer patient undergoing treatment at HCG Hospital. Anna has been in the city for the last four weeks and is dreading the rains.
“The image that I had of Bangalore is quite different from what the city is in reality. The city is much dirty compared to my native place. There is no proper place for garbage disposal here, and people use the streets for the purpose. I have not seen people deputed by civic authority to clean the roads in the morning and the evening. And once that I was out in the rains, I dread it now. The city becomes dirtier with garbage floating around,” Anna rues. Moreover though Bangalore is termed as the Garden city, it lacks fresh air today, she says.
However, many feel that this is a temporary phase and won’t affect the city’s medi-tourism in the long run. “With garbage disposal getting streamlined in the city, the tag of being one of the dirty cities globally too will fade away. Moreover, all the city’s major multi-specialty hospitals are very particular about garbage management within the premises. As far as hygiene is concerned, hospitals do adhere to good standards. Thus, medical tourists won’t have a problem,” contends Dr CN Manjunath, director, Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research.
