By Marina Kozlova

TASHKENT, Mar 15 (IPS) – The lack of clean water and efficient sewerage system are threatening the health of patients in Tashkent hospitals, not to mention the rest of the province’s population.

“Most hospitals and primary healthcare units in the Tashkent province do not have tap water or functioning sewerage systems,” says a sanitation inspector, her name withheld upon request, tasked to watch over the sanitary conditions of the province. “Such healthcare institutions should be closed but we cannot allow people to die through lack of medical care.”

This central Asian province is home to 104 hospitals, most of them government-owned. This means there are only 4.2 hospitals per 100,000 people, according to ‘Healthcare in Uzbekistan: Facts and Figures’, a statistical bulletin prepared by Uzbekistan’s State Committee on Statistics and published with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2006.

“There is no water in maternity wards, surgical wards, isolation wards and acute care hospitals,” the inspector told IPS. “Only hospitals in a few towns have water flowing continually in pipes and functioning sewerage systems.”

According to the inspector, water is brought into the hospital “in buckets and stored in basins” by the medical staff, which makes the water prone to bacterial contamination. Moreover, she continued, the hospital staff does not have enough water to clean the wards, bathe the patients or wash their hands properly. “All this causes enteric infections and purulent skin infections,” she stated.

Typhoid fever cases, according to the bulletin, were posted at 0.6 per 100,000 people in the Tashkent province in 2005, the fourth worse in the country.

Some 2.5 million people live in the Tashkent province surrounding Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent where 16 towns, 18 town-type settlements and 146 villages are located. It is considered one of the most industrialised province in the country. Contributing a large share to Uzbekistan’s gross domestic product, the province is fueled by the energy, mining, metallurgical and chemical industries.

A paediatrician, who also declined to be identified, from the Central Hospital in Yangiyul district in the Khalkabad settlement several kilometres from Tashkent said that clean water is hard to come by in the area.

“Tap water was given twice or three times in the last two weeks – only at night. We store it in a big tank. Parents bring children water in various containers,” he said.

The hospital’s sewerage system does not work and wastewater goes to a huge cesspit constructed in the hospital’s park.

The paediatrician hopes the children’s ward will be moved to a new building in the Gulbakhor settlement before the end of 2007. Gulbakhor has more tap water supply than Khalkabad, he added.

The provincial government and health authorities have allocated 220 million sums (about 180,000 dollars) for renovations to the hospital but this does not directly address the water problem. Hospital officials said that they need a regular supply of tap water to improve the situation.

The same problem hounds residents of Khalkabad as they try to cope with the lack of water and efficient sewerage system. Like in Tashkent, the people are constantly exposed to polluted water and are in danger of contracting gastrointestinal diseases.

“We boil water that we take from the nearby canal,” says Malika, a resident of Khalkabad. “But water in the canal is only present from March 15 to November 15. The canal has no water in winter.”

Seventy percent of tap water, supplied by the government-owned company Suvsoz to the capital and nearby areas, is sourced from the Bozsu canal. Due to old and leaky pipes, supply is erratic for residents who pay about 10 U.S. dollars a year for their water bills.

“Seventy percent of water pipes were laid in the ‘50s and ‘60s and do not meet standards now. Many are leaking. In addition, some water pumps have stopped working,” said sanitation inspector Rustam Sadykov (not his real name).

A report by the State Committee for Nature Protection, UzGlavGidroMet, the central administrative board of hydrometeorological service of Uzbekistan, the National University of Uzbekistan and other non-government organisations sheds light on the country’s grave water problem. The report advises that treatment facilities and equipment should be replaced. The construction of a new sewerage plant that could process some 500,000 cubic metres of waste products daily is also necessary.

Used water and waste substances produced in the capital are cleaned by two sewage treatment plants with a total capacity of around 2 million cubic metres per day.

The volume of sewage from Tashkent is higher than what the two sewage plants can hold. Because of this, said Sadykov, part of the untreated sewage is dumped into surrounding bodies of water.

“People outside Tashkent bathe in such water, use it in households and sometimes drink it,” he continued.

The 2006 National Human Development Report, ‘Health for All: A Key Goal for Uzbekistan in the New Millennium’, produced by experts commissioned by the UNDP, shows that tap water makes up 72.2 percent of all sources of drinking water in Uzbekistan.

At the same time, the report notes that, indeed, lack of quality drinking water and poor recycling of waste continue to be a challenge for the health care system. Because of the poor access to potable water, cases of acute diarrhoea and hepatitis are high among children.

According to the statistical bulletin, ‘Environmental Situation and Utilisation of Natural Resources in Uzbekistan: Facts and Figures 2000-2004’, average consumption in 2004 of water in urban areas is 325.7 litres per person, per day, and 114.8 litres each person per day in rural areas.

The intermittent flow of water in pipes and the low water pressure present another danger. Poor joints, cracks and holes in the pipe walls allow liquid waste to leak into the pipes when they are empty or under reduced pressure.
“I collect tap water when it flows in pipes but neighbours drink water taken from the canal,” said Saodat, a 30-year-old mother of three small children in Khalkabad. “Children in the settlement are often ill.” (END/IPS/MK/LC/140307)