About the Island of Bhola

cleft lipBhola has a high rate of children born with disabilities. Cleft lips and/or palates, club feet, blindness, deafness and cerebral palsy are among the common disabling conditions.

This high rate is a result of the combined effect of poverty, environmental pollution and the lack of medical care, in particular during pregnancy and at the time of birth.

The tragedy is that the pollution and other environmental problems are mainly the result of causes arising thousands of miles away and entirely outside Bhola’s control. It does not matter to Bhola whether it is global warming that is driving climate change, whether the causes are manmade and whether they are reversible. They simply need help coping with the consequences as they occur.deformed legs

There are also some specific direct causes: early marriage, early first pregnancy, marriage to a first cousin, and problems at the birth where by custom it is the man who takes all the decisions. If there are problems and the man does not seek help, or does not do so soon enough (it might involve physically carrying his wife to the clinic), the result may be brain damage, for example, leading to cerebral palsy.

Burns are another all too common cause of disablement or of death leading to orphanhood for the children. Of course, it is mainly the mothers and daughters who suffer the burns from oil lamps and stoves and, most tragic of all, the acid burns.

Continue....