Ruth's Ramblings

Nepal's health indicators are nearly all bad, but are showing encouraging signs of improvement. Average life expectancy is now 58 - up from a bare 43 in 1975 - though studies indicate that members of economically disadvantaged groups can still expect to live 15 years less than the average. Moreover, Nepal is the only country in the world where men live longer than women. Females are the last in the family to eat and are expected to work harder. And childbirth is still a very real hazard for Nepali women: due to poor prenatal care and unsterile conditions during delivery, the odds of a given birth resulting in the death of the mother are 1 in 200 - which is especially scary when you cinsider that the average Nepali woman has 4.6 children.

More than half of Nepali children are malnourished, sixteen percent of them seriously. As a result, child mortality is distressingly high. That means that, on average, one out of every ten Nepali children will die before he or she reaches the age of five...

...Improved public sanitation is gradulaly being introduced, and is seen as the surest way to combat a number of debilitating diseases. However, there is a long way to go: only twenty percent of Nepalis have access to toilet facilities of any sort (including outhouses), and in the booming Tarai cities, covered sewers are barely keeping pace with growth. Communal taps and wells have been built in many villages to provide drinking water, yet only 48 percent of Nepalis have access to safe water...