Medical Activity at IGIA on 5th DEC,2009

I had a blended experience at IGIA, Yelahanka last Saturday. Yes, it is yet another milestone for Udhayam Welfare Foundation. As already noted in the previous articles that we are in need of Doctors to regularly visit IGIA so that the students there will get a general health check up. With the efforts from Sridhar, we got permission from M.S.Ramaiah Medical College and Hospital for a free medical check up for the students. As the doctors over there were committed to other medical camps till Jan-2010, they are not able to visit the IGIA in person. So we decided to take the students directly to the hospital in batches. Myself, Sridhar, Hema, Aarthi, Shanmugam, Anup, Indra and the 2 wardens from IGIA accompanied the students to the Ramaiah Hospital. As we are taking these students out for the first time, we took utmost care for their safety during travel.

We reached the hospital around 10AM. Lakshmi Narayanan, who is the one helped us for getting approval for this free medical check up was waiting for us. Depending upon the disease they are suffering from we categorized the students. After that we made the registration for the patients at the respective counters and our members took them to the corresponding wards which varied from Ortho, Dental, Pediatric, Opthalmology etc., For some of the cases we need to take X-rays, Scan, Diagnostic reports. As there is shortage of members from our side, we managed within ourselves by roaming here and there to get these reports done. Basically these students are migrated from Srilanka in the recent war and they were staying in Refugee camps at various parts of our Country. Due to the climatic changes here in Bangalore, most of them were suffering from skin problems.

The worst case was with a kid named Keerthi of 5 years old. She got some kind of skin rashes with itching due to allergy spreaded across her body from neck, shoulder, arms, legs and to the foot. As she is not aware of the problem, it gets worsen. The doctors took utmost care to analyze the problem and gave her the treatment.

Another student named Reega got severe skin problem at her foot. She can’t even walk and she was crying like anything. The doctors advised her to get admitted for the treatment from Monday. As the students were having these kinds of problems for a long time, the doctors were wondering as why we didn’t take the necessary steps in time. The doctors were not aware of the present situation in IGIA and we explained them about the same. All the doctors were very kind with the patients and even some doctors interacted with the patients in Tamil. In some cases, our members translated the problem the patients were facing in English to the Doctors and Vice-versa.

5 patients got treatment for eye and the doctors advised them to wear spectacles. Yet we have to buy the spectacles for them.

A students named Prabhadharani got treatment for Ear as she was not able to hear properly through her left ear and few students got treatment for ortho. It took a long time to complete the various medical tests for a student named Dushanthini who is suffering from severe leg pain.

The hospital provided them lunch for free. After taking the lunch, the students took rest for some time and then we started towards IGIA at 4pm and reached IGIA by 6pm. As we have to buy the medicines for the treatment they had, myself and Shanmugam started to silkboard by 6.15pm. We got the medicines for all the students in a medical shop at HSR layout, well separated in covers for each of them and stapled. The next day Sridhar distributed the medicines to the respective students.

We need more volunteers to help these students in getting their medical check up properly. I have used few medical terms in some places as I can’t avoid.Please bear with the terms.

Special thanks to Aarthi and Hema as they travelled a lot in bus through out the day from 6AM to 10.30PM.

Special thanks to Sridhar to get the contact with the Ramaiah hospital authorities and Lakshmi Narayanan (Ramaiah Hospital) who arranged and helped us for this medical check up.

I thank every one of you who supported us throughout this medical camp and last but not the least, on behalf of Udhayam Welfare Foundation; I thank everyone who is giving us support and encouragement.

Intouch,
Mathi.