Holidays . .. ...

Well, I'm away from hospital and on holidays for the next 3 weeks. It's been 5 exhilarating months at NJH since the last time I was away. The major part being the huge increase in patient load compared to the previous years. Am I exhausted? Yeah, to a certain extent . . . but when I see the smile of the patients whom we could save from almost certain death, I don't mind the workload.

It's holiday time in our region for almost the whole of next 2 months . . . Dussehra, Diwali, Chatt . . . and they all keep people quite busy. The outpatients would think twice before coming to hospital. Only if they are really sick would they turn up . . . which makes the emergency a bit busier than usual. In addition, since the other hospitals may be closed or partially staffed, quite a number of patients would make a beeline to NJH. Then there would be deliveries, which have sort of tapered down over the last 2 weeks.

Talking of lives saved, I was sort of forced to look into statistics about a week back before I went off on holiday. The reason - A meeting facilitated by my post graduate Alma Mater, the Community Health Department, Christian Medical College, Vellore along with a whole lot of organisations - Emmanuel Hospital Association, Catholic Health Association of India, Catholic Bishops Conference of India, CCHDT.

Dr Kurien George, Head of the Department of Community Health,
Christian Medical College, Vellore addresses the gathering

Just wanted to share some of the calculations we came up with . . .

First, the populations, we deal with -

District	Total pop.	Pop. catered
Palamu	1936319	1452239
Garhwa	1322387	661194
Latehar	725673	362837
Total	3984379	2476269

The population catered has been arrived at by excluding the blocks within the districts which we know are more nearer to Gaya or Varanasi or Ranchi. For example, the blocks in Palamu district which border Bihar are more closer to Gaya, whereas there are blocks bordering Uttar Pradesh in Garhwa district which are nearer to Varanasi, and for Latehar, many of the blocks are nearer to Ranchi. 

Then looking at maternal deaths for the duration January-Sept 2012 - 

Then, we looked at Maternal Near Misses . . . and it was a rude shock. We did not look at all maternal misses, only those who went through Intensive Care. MNM definitions includes even those who had to have blood transfusions. I could not get those stats. 

There are quite a lot things being planned. And I'm really excited of what we could be looking at after one year if everything goes as planned. 

Talking about things I'm excited of, I cannot hide the excitement I have of the new Community Health Projects we are embarking on. There's this new project on disability which we are planning to implement in 8 blocks of Palamu district and 4 districts of Latehar district. In addition, there is the project on Climate Change where we try to empower communities to respond to climate change. There is a whole new team who will be working on this. 

For the Climate Change project, we were in for a surprise when Dr M S Yadav, Director, Zonal Research Centre (Agriculture) visited us. He is in charge of 6 districts in agriculture research and promotion. He requested our collaboration in the field of agriculture. The topics he dealt with ranged from need for watershed mapping and construction of check dams in the surrounding villages, millet cultivation, poultry - duck, turkey and quail, pig and goat rearing, mushroom cultivation, vermicompost and fish rearing in ponds, exploring the possibility of pilot projects within the campus in fish rearing (already being done - but to do it more scientifically), mushroom cultivation, pig and goat rearing and drip irrigation. 

Dr Yadav talks with the CH staff

Well, the list is mind-boggling. It only shows the potential we have in this place. Later, I had discussions with our Community Health Manager, Mr. Prabodh and our Manager-Technical Maintenance, Mr. Dinesh about the visit. We would be seriously looking at the possibility of an Agriculture Department and possibly a Veterinary Doctor too. 

Well, I'm sure that I will not be able to do all these things without additional help, but just a glimpse about the possibilities makes ones imaginations go wild . . . 

I'm of course on holiday, but I just can't wait to get back . . .  Please do help us to get new staff who would be willing to look at agriculture, veterinary sciences etc as well as a surgeon when Dr Nandamani leaves in mid-December.