The 10th
of September, 2014 is going to be a day to remember for our family. My dad celebrated
his 67th birthday. As a family, we took the decision to
stay on in the Palamu region for the timing being. After I had to leave NJH, it
has been one decision at a time. There were apprehensions of safety, about
working in a very basic set up, about working closely with the Catholic church,
about the remoteness of the region, about being close to NJH . . .
My
team-members, Rachel and Satyaprakash, had a plan to visit one of the nearby
villages. I told them that I will tag along. The place was a difficult one –
inhabited in majority by one community. There had been quite difficulties in
starting off the work. A group of disabled people and their families were in
the process of joining hands to work together.
We left the
main road to travel about 3 kilometers to reach the village. It was so thickly
populated. It looked more like a slum than a village. Overflowing drains,
cobbled streets, mangy dogs running along the streets, sickly looking half
naked children playing wherever they could find some space . . . The place
looked quite out of place for the rugged agrarian communities that we usually
have around this place.
Most of the
people on the street were quite suspicious of our arrival. We reached the
designated place of the meeting. There was nobody in sight. Satyaprakash told
the lady of the house to inform everybody that we’ve arrived. We then drove on
further down the road to meet couple of disabled families.
We returned
in 10 minutes to find the meeting place teeming with children. They all looked
alright to me. Then, I saw couple of children, limp with their drooping heads
resting on the shoulders of most probably their parents. There was one young
man with quite badly deformed legs.
Considering
that Rachel and Satyaprakash were familiar faces, I opted to stay at a distance
and observe. The faces of the parents were bereft of any hope. They looked quite
lost in thoughts as my colleagues told them about the need to group together,
work together, about what their children can do etc etc.
The father
of one of the children with the cerebral palsy had come late and could not find
space inside the room where the meeting was going on. Only the mothers of the
disabled children were there in the room. His wife was there with the child. So,
he silently came out.
I asked him
about his child. He looked quite well off for the setting. Dressed in jeans and
a branded shirt with jazzy looking goggles in his shirt pocket, he looked very
unlikely to be an anxious parent. But, he was an anxious father.
His child
was born in a private hospital in the local town. The child had not cried at
birth. He was admitted for about 3 days in the same hospital before he was
referred to a tertiary centre for neonatal care. The baby was admitted in the
city hospital for about a month before the parents were told that nothing can
be done and maybe some exercises could help.
They took the
child to many places but nobody had told them that the child would never be how
they would expect him to be. And of course, nobody was there to tell them on
how to do things for the maximum benefit for this child.
On asking
the man about number of similar children in the village, he told that he knew
personally at least 10 of them. Rachel and Satyaprakash was discussing about
the same issue in the meeting. And one of the ladies called out to the man to
ask the same question.
We told the
group about the need to form a caregivers group for such children.
Sheron, our
physiotherapist would soon be visiting this village. I hope that the parents
would take this endeavour seriously.
I felt so
elated after the outing . . . I was looking out for a sign . . . to move on or stay. As we journeyed back, I asked Rachel about plans
for the year ahead. She told about doing the same thing for 3 more years in
this region . . . till there is a change in attitude towards the disabled.
The region
we serve in is quite backward when it comes to even routine clinical care.
Leave alone the disabled people, it’s a challenge for the rest of the
population to access basic primary care services. If it were not for people
like Rachel, Satyaprakash etc. who are the members of our team, the disabled in
these regions would never have known that there is hope for them.
Over the
last 3 weeks since I’ve been in Barwadih, I have been exposed to blunt fact
that communities that have poor, almost no access to basic healthcare are much
much more than I ever thought. So, the challenge to the disabled in such
settings becomes all the more large.
However, the
bigger challenge would to find like-minded healthcare and social work professionals
who would be ready to go the extra mile to make a difference in the lives of
these special people, especially in remote areas of the country, similar to the
region we serve.
