Articles tagged with: Turkmenistan healthcare
Image by Flicker user Howzey (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Turkmenistan’s healthcare system is decrepit but veiled in totalitarian secrecy, says a report by humanitarian organization MSF. “Trying to scare off criticism by baring its teeth will not save our government from decline,” writes neweurasia’s Annasoltan. Read her ongoing coverage of Turkmenistan’s crumbling healthcare here.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which was kicked out of the country last year, have now gotten “the bill” this week from Turkmenistan. In a rare spectacular showdown with an international and prestigious humanitarian organization, a Turkmen Foreign Ministry statement attacked with harsh words a report issued on 12 April by MSF as,
“a provacation, containing false information with the deliberate aim of discrediting the reputation of the country.”
The report provides valuable insight to Turkmenistan’s public health care system, the realities of which are usually “hidden with care” from the public. It says
The people of Turkmenistan are being failed by their health care system, by their government, and by the international community. The system that supposed to ensure their health is instead designed to conceal problems. This is not the case of individual practices failing to do their jobs but one that is far more systemic.
The report goes onto say that public health risks are not being effectively addressed, prevention mechanisms are not in place, misinformation about how to avoid contracting and spreading disease is rampant, and serious health care issues are driven underground.
In a country like Turkmenistan, who is really the crazy one? Photograph by Flickr user Martha Madness (CC-usage).
Kakabay Tedzhenov is a former inmate of a psychiatric hospital in Turkmenistan. Telling his shocking story, the 73 year-old-pensioner, now living in a small town in Russia, remembers:
It was cold during winter inside the house I lived and so were the conditions for my neighbors, in Turkmenabad, where I lived. One day I sent a petition to the local authorities demanding better heating in my house in order to put an end to the situation I faced every winter. I went on to send several petitions, but the only result was that the local authorities began to persecute me.
I didn’t give up. I went all the way the President [Niyazov]. One evening [in January 2006] men in white clothes came to my house and forcefully packed me into a car. First I didn’t know what they had in mind but then I was taken into a heavily guarded building and locked in a room with four mentally ill people. It was the infamous Boyunuzyn psychiatric hospital.
I was injected with various drugs, including Amenazin, a drug which caused me terrible pain and health problems. I got sick and was taken for surgery, after which I was returned [to Boyunuzyn]. In total, I spent ten months in Boyunuzyn. I owe my release to the intense advocacy of rights groups who protested my detention.
Two months after Tedzhenov’s release, Niyazov suddenly died. It seemed a fitting capstone to the story. Yet, Tedzhenov was neither the first — nor the last — prisoner of conscience to be subjected to psychiatry as a form of torture.
Indeed, the abuse of psychiatry for political purposes gets less attention in Turkmenistan than other “traditional” methods of repression, such as imprisonment and torture.
Photograph by Flickr user Vramak (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: This is the latest in Annasoltan’s ongoing coverage of the Turkmen healthcare system. Check out her series “Influenzastan“.
Turkmenistan has built some of the largest sports and recreation facilities in Central Asia and is flexing their muscle to build more. An Olympic village, stadiums, hippodromes, tennis courts, sport halls, gyms, and water sports complexes, to name a few, have risen up rather quickly.
Physical education, abolished during Niyazov’s rule as “unnecessary,” has been restored to schools, and recently the government-controlled media national sporting news has been given increased attention publishing the names of “best athletes of the year.” Promoting the motto “a healthy head in a healthy body,” sports is in the government’s areas of priority for development. So far so good.
But for some, sports have become a fanatical preoccupation while for others it simply misses the point. For example, the “Ice Palace” was devoted to skating in a country covered by sand with temperature exceeding 40 degrees Centigrade. If the late Niyazov thought of sports facilities more as a decoration, Berdimuhamedov wants to see them filled with life.
There is also hope that new sports facilities will help boost tourism. The official goal is to get government officials and school children take part in troublesome hiking on the president’s “Health Path,” which becomes an extreme sport for workers, artists, students, sportsmen, pensioners and others on special days. But people have questioned the money spent on them when the stadiums and hippodromes built by both presidents stand mostly empty.
The TB bacteria. Image from Wikipedia (CC-usage).
Tuberculosis, especially the drug resistant kind, is a serious problem in Turkmenistan. Yet, the government is doing little to treat the disease. In fact, they seem to be doing just the opposite — doing everything they can to make it more of a problem.
In my last post I talked with Christoph Hippchen, the country manager for Turkmenistan of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who left the country last week. Today I explore the baffling behavior of Turkmen health policy.
"X" marks the spot: do not enter. Photograph courtesy of Wikipedia (CC-usage).
Last week Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) became the latest international humanitarian NGO to leave Turkmenistan after 10 years of working here. Frank Dörner, General Director at MSF in a press release from 17 December, said:
Medical needs in Turkmenistan are still high and there is a good reason for us to work here. However, our project proposals have been repeatedly rejected which does not leave us with a lot of choice but to close down. We had hoped to be able to assist the Turkmen population which is exposed to high rates of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, but still has no access to care and effective treatment.
Their departure only adds to the absurdity of Turkmen healthcare.
Image by neweurasia's Schwartz (CC-usage). Click on it to read the story by the Chronicles of Turkmenistan.
This year, more than two million people across the world are heading, as if pulled by a magnet, to one single spot on earth: Mecca. But no Turkmen will be joining this great human current. Although approximately 90% of Turkmenistan’s population is Muslim, the Turkmen government is not issuing exit visas to would-be pilgrims.
A map of the internet bearing a curious reminiscence to a neural virus. Image by the Opte Project, courtesy of Flickr user curiouslee (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Has Turkmenistan come down with a bad case of the swine flu? neweurasia’s Annasoltan investigates in this fifth part of a post series on Turkmen healthcare. Previously, neweurasia’s Timur and Bakhrom debated whether the disease in Kyrgyzstan is a serious threat. Read the rest of our ongoing coverage on the disease here.
Yesterday I explored the similarities between 2003′s avian flu crisis in China and today’s on-going swine flu crisis in Turkmenistan. To review: In 2003, when the Chinese government tried to cover up the avian flu outbreak, the result was a public relations disaster. History is now repeating itself in Turkmenistan.
But there is a deeper level going on here. Just as in China, as the Turkmen government tries to repress information about swine flu, the Turkmen people are turning to the internet for answers. The results could be perilous for the future of the regime.
The internet is not sanitary: in the face of their government's obtuseness over the swine flu, Turkmens are turning to the internet for answers -- and for each other. Image by Flickr user larksflem (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Has Turkmenistan come down with a bad case of the swine flu? neweurasia’s Annasoltan investigates in this fourth part of a post series on Turkmen healthcare. Previously, neweurasia’s Timur and Bakhrom debated whether the disease in Kyrgyzstan is a serious threat. Read the rest of our ongoing coverage on the disease here.
Last week I reported on the Turkmen government’s faltering attempts to repress public reaction to the swine flu. They have tried several bizaare and almost comical methods, but most of all, consistent with established practice, they have tried to simply deny the crisis into non-existence. For example, on 5 November the Turkmen State News Agency proclaimed,
All services of the health system of Turkmenistan have every means to prevent infiltration of particularly dangerous infections from neighboring countries, as well as other countries. The Ashgabat International Airport and the seaport of Turkmenbashi have been fitted with thermo-scanners, and medical services have been put on alert.
I believe we have seen this process before. In 2003, during the height of the avian flu outbreak, the Chinese government tried to cover up the disease. Their attempts backfired and resulted in a domestic public relations disaster that still dogs the government.
Indeed, the outbreak took two forms — the disease itself, which spread rapidly, and the panicked reaction to it from the public — and it seemed to have a life of its own. A key player in the crisis was the Chinese internet community, who, in the face of their government’s obtuseness, began a desperate hunt for information, trying to find out if the disease was truly a threat to human life. Rumors rapidly spread via e-mails, quickly reaching the eyes of reporters and triggering what some academics now call the “Chinese Information Technology Revolution“.
Today, we are seeing something very similar in Turkmenistan, with a small but intrepid online community turning to the internet for answers.
The H5N1 virus is a far more dangerous variant of the H1N1 "swine flu". Yet, somehow, pigs have caused more terror in the citizens of Turkmenistan than chickens -- a terror seemingly beyond the control of one of the world's most repressive regimes. Image courtesy of Flickr user Quiplash (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Has Turkmenistan come down with a bad case of the swine flu? neweurasia’s Annasoltan investigates in this third part of a post series on Turkmen healthcare. During this past weekend, neweurasia’s Timur and Bakhrom debate whether the disease is a serious threat. Read the rest of our ongoing coverage on the disease here.
In yesterday’s post I discussed how the Turkmen government’s incompetent attempts to suppress the truth about swine flu deaths — whether any have occurred in Turkmenistan and, if so, how many — has backfired and actually sparked a greater panic in the country. Yet, this is a government known for its efficient methods of repression. This bumbling is profoundly uncharacteristic — or is it? Today I will explore more of everyday Turkmens’ reactions to the swine flu, as well as the question of what may be going on behind the closed doors of the government.
The Turkmen government is having difficulty suppressing the terror that swine flu has evoked across the world. Image by Flickr user Phamous (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Has Turkmenistan come down with a bad case of the swine flu? neweurasia’s Annasoltan investigates in this second part of a post series on Turkmen healthcare. During this past weekend, neweurasia’s Timur and Bakhrom debate whether the disease is a serious threat. Read the rest of our ongoing coverage on the disease here.
The Turkmen government loves information blackouts. There are too many examples to count but if you’ve been reading neweurasia these last few years you’ll know what I mean.
This time, however, the attempt to suppress the truth about swine flu deaths — whether any have occurred in Turkmenistan and, if so, how many — has backfired. Public confidence, already eroding since September, is dissipating further. In fact, and quite ironically, the government’s attempts to prevent panic have had the opposite effect.
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