Difference between access and supply of drinking water

I don’t like to talk about percentages, because numbers are always an important part of life and, when it comes to people, they never take into account the individual. However, they paint a picture that always serves as a reference for better understanding the reality of society in which we live.

Although it is true that 85% of the rural population today has access to drinking water, It is no less true that 70% of that population does not have a constant supply.

Many times, more often than we might imagine, when opening the pen, I can only get a very generous portion of air and nothing more. If we start to think that the human brain consists of water up to 83% of its mass, and that the body is composed of up to 60% of this liquid, then we can conclude that it is waterin proportion, more important for man that food itself. First water, then food; ideally, both.

But if we consider that in our rural population there is econstant shortage and constant supply of water, then what is the point if the statistics show that you have access to it?

At the same time, it would be like having a car that hardly anyone has. access to fuel. There is no water, but what is missing is its supply. To put it romantically, in the shadow of the cold statistics, our rural population They have access to potable water, yes, but in practical terms the reality is that it doesn’t come to them all the time and so they have to resort to all kinds of creativity to store it and count on it only for the most urgent needs of their lives.

I wonder why, knowing this reality in advance, politicians do not commit themselves to the implementation of programs that can meet this urgent need of the population and, without a doubt, body and brain. Can a poorly hydrated minor optimally use his brain to assimilate the education he is given?

I think that the failure of many political programs, even the program population health strategies in general, The point is that they were not prepared in the field, but in very chilled rooms, in the warmth of soft electric light and with the repetition of cold figures composed in studies that always end up in a dark, metal cavity. filing cabinets.

It is not possible that at this moment, and in this country, where the annual rainfall reaches astronomical figures of 223.8 billion cubic meters per year, a communal rainwater collection system has not yet been implemented, in the most remote and inaccessible places, modern mechanisms for the use of rain for rural households. I think it is an interesting initiative that was carried out, for example, in Professional and technical institute Monte Lily, in Chiriquí, with Storage capacity of 75 thousand liters of rainwater, the most in one school in the whole country. But why is this initiative not taken to all our rural centers in Panama, as a matter of urgent national need? We invite candidates for public elective offices to give real importance which deserves the problem of water and lack of supplyand they believe that in our country, in fifth place in in the world with the most precipitationone can look for modern and efficient mechanisms that will provide every inhabitant of our forgotten fields with a daily and vital consumption of at least 2.7 liters of water per day, even if it rains.