More Penan kids with poor health

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LONG TANYIT (Kapit): Penan parents living in the deep interior of Sarawak are having to travel between five and seven hours just to get to a clinic with their children who are increasingly suffering from diarrhoea, fits and influenza.

Community leaders and parents in Long Tanyit, Long Lidem and Lusong Laku settlements near the Kalimantan border said they are worried about the rising number of health ailments afflicting their young,

“Babies are having diarrhoea more often. Young children are having fits. This is something we did not face in the past,” said a Penan woman, Minah Upak, a mother of four who had come to the Lusong Laku Clinic with her three-year-old son.

Penghulu Sula Ugat, the Penan chief here, attributed the surge in health problems among the young to poor nutrition and the drinking of polluted water.

Tender care: A teary-eyed toddler feeling safe and warm in the arms of her sister at the longhouse in Long Tanyit.

He said the communities in the deep reaches of Kapit Division, some 11 hours by road from Bintulu town, was facing a food shortage after a five-month dry spell destroyed their crops.

As such, he said, many families have had to rely on “unusual’’ food sources, such as unripe fruits, bitter ferns and water from plants and mud pools.

“While adults can adapt to eating these things, the babies and young children are not reacting well,” he said, stressing that the parents had no choice but to feed their children whatever was available.

During a one-week stay in ulu Kapit, The Star reporter saw many babies and children suffering from a runny nose, cough, teary eyes and some had bloated stomachs.

The clinic in Lusong Laku caters to a population of about 3,000 indigenous people, mostly Penans, who live in Lusong Laku, Long Tanyit (five hours by road from Lusong Laku), Long Lidem (six hours), Long Kajang and Long Abit (seven hours).

The clinic provides basic healthcare and medical services for adults, women and babies, but serious health ailments must be referred to urban hospitals in Kapit or Bintulu for further action, said a member of the staff at the Lusong Laku Clinic.

Penghulu Sula urged the government to open more clinics and deploy more mobile health units to the deeper settlements as it was difficult for those without transportation to travel to the Lusong Laku Clinic.