Physical health of 56% of Rana Plaza survivors worsens: Survey

Around 56.5% of the Rana Plaza collapse survivors said their physical health condition is getting worse, according to a survey conducted by the ActionAid Bangladesh.

The victims who reported declining physical health conditions are complaining of waist pain, headache, pain in hand and leg, and back pain as some of the major problems.

The trend of previous surveys shows that the physical health status of the survivors was slowly improving, but their condition worsened due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The latest survey revealed that the physical condition of 33% of the survivors is more or less stable, and 10.5% are completely stable.

In terms of mental health, currently, 48.5% of the surviving Rana Plaza victims are suffering from psychological trauma, while last year 12.5% of the survivors were suffering from this problem.

According to the report, 31% of the survivors said their mental condition is more or less stable, while 20.5% said they have recovered fully. 

These findings were revealed in a survey conducted among 200 Rana Plaza survivors ahead of the 9th year of the tragedy.

According to the survey, currently, 53% of the survivors are unemployed, while 47% are engaged in various types of wage-earning activities and self-employment.

The study report mentioned that 67% of the unemployed Rana Plaza victims cannot find jobs due to bad physical conditions, while 10% cannot work due to mental trauma.

Many of these victims of accidents tend to change work frequently as their physical conditions do not allow them to work for long periods at a time.

The survey also revealed that 14.5% of the survivors returned to garments, 8% got involved in tailoring, while many others shifted to other professions like domestic work, day labour, farming, agriculture, sales and driving.

The survey found that the income of most of the employed survivors has drastically decreased due to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Among them, 63.5% said they had difficulty buying food for their families every day during the pandemic because they did not have enough money, 51.5% could not pay their rent, and 22.5% could not afford childcare.

Meanwhile, 46.5% of the survivors had to take out a loan to manage their family's food and other expenses during the pandemic.

A total of 36% of the survivors said their household income is less than Tk5,000, while 34% said it is between Tk10,000-15,000.

According to the survey, 35% of the survivors reported that their expenditure is over Tk10,000 and 30% said it is above Tk15,000, with major costs incurred for food, followed by house-rent, children's education, and treatment.