Conflict Situation and Healthcare Service

Conflict often disrupts the functioning of health and social services and results in heightened risk of disease transmission. However, it has not received the adequate attention it deserves. The book attempts to look into the healthcare seeking behaviour of communities residing in a conflict prone region of Loktak Lake of Manipur and the challenges faced by service providers working in conflict environment. The prevailing armed conflict situation has disturbed the provisioning and delivering of health care services in the Loktak Lake and its associated wetland. Moreover, educational centres like schools, tourist centres and healthcare centres are mostly occupied by security forces. The reluctance to travel or be posted to conflict affected areas due to fear of arrests, ill treatment, and restriction of freedom, both from the insurgents as well as the government security personnel is affecting the services delivery mainly in such remote region. Under these circumstances, people’s health status is adversely affected due to their poor access to health services and inability of service providers to make those services available on time. This has resulted in a situation where the locals have lost trust in health service providers and are increasingly opting for self-medication or using locally available resources like traditional healers.  The book will be help in developing a conflict sensitive health programmes and also be useful to scholars and students working in the areas of social work, public health and health and conflict studies