Social impacts of ?Rajarata kidney disease?: with special reference to Welioya Divisional Secretariat Division

Abstract

Though there are certain evidences of historical roots for kidney disease in the North Central Province, it had not become a major health hazard for the people of this region until last two decades. However, it has rapidly increased the number of kidney disease patients after 1990s. At present, it has already jeopardized the entire social, economic and cultural sphere of the people as a result of kidney disease in the entire province. The paper aims to discuss the findings of a research conducted in the Welioya Divisional Secretariat Division using qualitative data techniques in recent past. The objective of the research is to identify the social impacts of kidney disease in the most affected area of the Anuradhapura district. The existing alarming situation has drawn lot of attention from government health system, researchers, media, and politicians that are engaged in different and controversial debates on the issue. However, the current study may not focus on such debates related to the root-causes of the disease, but focused on social repercussion of the disease. On the basis of preliminary investigation, there are many emerging socio-economic trends varying according to each social class and their knowledge and understand of the catastrophe. On the one hand, wealthy people think that they should migrate and settle in most protective regions of the country while poor people think that they have to follow the medical instructions and continue the existing agriculture based livelihood for their survival on the other. In certain locations, there are more than five deaths within few families and, sometimes, two or more deaths from the same family. Today, some of them hesitate to get married from such families or particularly from those highly affected locations. Though there are such huge social impacts, some of them are not aware of the severity of the health hazard due to lack of actual reason for the disease. The medical experts are quoting different reasons with lack of correlation to each reason and they have so far failed to synchronize the real background of the disease. Finally, the existing condition has developed very negative impact over the livelihood of the people in all affected areas.