Jiyad Hussain Ahdal A V, PhD Research Scholar from the Centre for Study for Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (CSSEIP), working under Prof. Ajailiu Niumai, Head of the CSSEIP will present a paper titled “Occlusion of Border and Exclusion of Region: Spatial inequalities in the Health Sector of Kasaragod District, Kerala state, India” in the 2022 Annual Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology Conference (AACSC), which is taking place at Louisville, Kentucky, USA from 6-8 October 2022. The conference’s theme is “Repairing Our World: Using Applied and Clinical Sociology to Do Good,” and the mode of the presentation will be virtual.
Jiyad Hussain Ahdal A V
Abstract of the paper:
The northernmost district Kasaragod of Kerala state in India shares its border with Karnataka state, which is often regarded as less-developed or excluded compared to other districts. The public health sector facilities of the district are inadequate, and its development long-delayed demand of the district. Thus, the people of Kasaragod continued to be dependent upon Mangalore city, an adjacent city in Karnataka state, for super-speciality hospital care and service. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Karnataka state closed down its border passages to Kasaragod district to break the chain of Covid-19 spreading. Consequently, the chronic patients who take emergency treatment in Mangalore city were stopped at the border and died. The spatial distance between hospitals, where high treatment (tertiary) is available, and the regions in the district need to be discussed in relation to the equal right to access the treatment of the residents in the Kasaragod district. Hence, the paper discusses the plights of border residents in Kasaragod based on the themes of spatial inequalities in border-district, particularly emphasizing the health sector and the closure of borders amidst Covid-19.