A single moment in the early morning shattered the trust Mohammad Tawrit had built over six decades. Despite a lifetime of disciplined lifestyle, he was blindsided when he was diagnosed with a blocked artery -- his first serious health scare. More disconcerting than the diagnosis itself was the absence of any obvious explanation for his condition.
Tawrit's shock was felt equally by his elder brother, a physician, who was incredulous upon reviewing the angiogram. The doctor sent his brother home for rest.
"At my age -- sixty years -- my definition of living a disciplined, healthy life has been overturned," Tawrit reflects after his recovery from the stent procedure. "That's not something I can easily accept."
As a first-division cricketer since teen age, early riser, small eater with healthy dietary menu, the IT expert, Mohammad Tawrit, has no habit of addiction, neither any smoking, alcohol nor any soft drink. Even failing to recall any medicines for any other health issues, he could not get any answer from his physician other than 'a case of exception'.
The fact is medical practitioners try to link this kind of patients with multifactors like genetic issues, food system, mental stress, etc. But hardly anyone considers air pollution, plastic health hazards, heat-wave hazards and other environmental and climate health issues among causes, though hundreds of cases are found by researchers to have such health hazards, including death.
And noise pollution is special to Dhaka -- from honking horn of chaotically run outmoded, life-expired transport vehicles to rundown buses, in particular. Besides mass deafness, health experts blame extremely high sounds above permissible levels for numerous life-threatening diseases, including hypertension.
Talking over the issues, physicians say pollution, like climate issues, is beyond control of doctors and patients due to automatic exposure. In absence of anti-doxcide or alternatives, they are reluctant to diagnose reasons like climate change, pollution, heat wave, plastic health hazards and the like. Patients are not prescribed with any such causes.
But scientists and climate activists differ -- claiming that medicine-and diagnostic -dominated medical system does not take into consideration health hazards related to the triple crises that the planet faces for climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
But the planet continues to face consequences of the crises with health hazards from lung to skin, immature death as well as cancer-like fatal situation, which has been proven in global studies. On the other hand, medical science cannot ignore the medical treatments and facilities which have been developed based on commercialization with huge investment and nexus worldwide.
Dr. Tahmina Shirin, Director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), emphasizes that situation similar to Mr. Tawrit's case -- where climate-linked, silent health threats emerge -- "underscore the urgent need for expanded research rather than routine clinical intervention".
Despite these efforts, many practitioners remain constrained by a lack of accessible diagnostic tools and limited integration of environmental risk factors into everyday public health practice. While IEDCR is laying the groundwork through population-level monitoring and research, broader adoption of climate-informed diagnostics in the clinical community is still lagging.
Tawrit's housing is located at centre of highly air-polluted city that faces extreme weather, uncontrolled plastic use, including single-use plastic (SUP), food security, etc. In recent times, climate and environmental health activists also find clear health impact of the city life for the changing pattern of rainfall, cyclone, flood and drought that also increase the rate of deaths of newborn and young population owing to heart, lung and other diseases.
However, medical practitioners' negligence is equally reflected in regional and global contexts when only one death case has so far been found certified in the death certificate. Mother of Ella in East London was able to prove the death of her minor daughter with pollution. Though doctor identified Ella's case with asthma and treated for two years, Ella's life ended on her ninth birthday in February 2013 after two years of treatment, finally showing the cause of acute respiratory failure in death certificate. Ella's examinations continued from sleep and bacterial studies to test from epilepsy to cystic fibrosis since the first attack.
Rosamund, who launched movement under Ella Roberta Foundation, found her daughter's death link with air pollution for having illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide caused by traffic and was able to get the death certificate by a respiratory physician.
Air pollution, termed a "silent pandemic", is responsible for millions of premature deaths annually, and increasingly affecting non-smokers and young people. Plastic pollution, has been revealed not just as a waste issue, but as a vector for chemical exposure linked to a range of chronic illnesses. The city's temperature increased 0.5°C over decades, with evidences of growing heats and rainfalls and less cold in winters. Air-quality index ranked Dhaka fourth -highest polluted city in August. German Watch Global Climate Risk Index ranks Bangladesh among 10 most risky countries in terms of pollution -- a wake-up call for action urgent for common rescue of all who take a breath in here.
Dr Belal Bin Asif of Institute of Chest Surgery, Medanta Hospital of India, says scientific -research findings could not motivate medical practitioners as it is "hard to prove link and no easy way to diagnose patients' ailment with climate -and environment- related complications".
From his research on lung diseases, the physician-cum -researcher has said many young people, including children, are found with severe lung problems on a daily basis and cases of myocardial infarction, heart attack, congestive heart failure and cardiovascular mortality are found increasingly in young population.
Citing the Ella case as still the lone one in medical science, Dr Jemilah Mahmood, Executive Director, Malaysia Sunway Centre for Planetary Health (SCPH), says the earth may tolerate a triple planetary crisis to some level, but its impact on human health may not.
Sharing her long experiences in working on health issues during a recent workshop in Malaysia, she pointed out that the gap between human health and planetary health is related with profiteering, politics, commercial diverse as climate change, pollution, plastic pollution -- all are associated with fossil fuel which govern and control the earth with trillions of trillions of dollars worth of investment.
During a workshop of physicians and scientists in 2025 all experts agreed upon medical practitioners' engagement during daily and regular treatment for making all concerned conscious about the heterodoxic health hazards. Green activists and scientists feel the necessity most when physically helpless people depend more on doctors than others when issues of physical, -mental health- related sicknesses strike.
smunima@yahoo.com
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