Photo post . . .

The previous one was a blog full of prose. And some terrible snaps. . . More of the terrible snaps that we get to find here . . .

1. The first one, a 16 year old girl who presented in OPD with history of cough for about 10 years. She was being managed by quacks in her village and also with roots and herbs as part of traditional treatment. Till, she started to have fever since the last 6 months. And one day before reaching her, she started to spit out blood – which prompted her to come here. And the worse part was that she was severely hypoxic (SpO2 70%) that she was so confused.

2. Chest –Ray of a 45 year old lady who came in with chest pain and breathlessness.

3. A swarm of wasps who started to make their next on the roof of one of the campus buildings. Over the last 4 months, we had 2 patients who came in with anaphylaxis after wasp stings. Fortunately, both of them had survived.

4. The badly infected scalp wound of AM, who came to us last week. In my previous post, I had mistakenly mentioned that AM had gone to some health centre immediately after the injury. It was not true. The family thought of going to a health care provider only few days back from where he was referred here.

5. Chest X-Ray of one of our local villagers who fell through a partially constructed bridge while coming back home from work. Cannot blame the bridge alone as he was quite drunk to realise that he had fallen through. Only the next day, he realised that he was having difficulty in breathing as well as severe chest pain. And then he started to spit out blood . . .

6. Something which we had been searching for quite a long time. A skin mesher for use in our skin grafts. It’s quite expensive . . . 75,000 INR (approximately 1500 USD/AUDs, 1000 GBPs) Wondering if we could find a donor . . .

7. And the final one. . . X-Ray after bullet injury on the thigh of a 20 year young man . . .

Well, before I sign off this post, need to tell you that we had an amazing day of obstetric care at NJH today. Do watch out for the next post . . . 

Violence . . .Living with it . . .

Our region has been in the grips of regular violence for quite a long time. Finding dead bodies on the road, news about gun firing and bombs going off are quite regular stuff.

As I had mentioned in one of my previous posts, we had been having quite a number of bandhs since the last 10 days. In fact, bandh has been called today and tomorrow too.

However, today morning, I woke up to the rude shock of a mine blast quite near our hospital which was aimed at a Member of Parliament from the adjacent district. From the latest reports, 12 people, almost all of them policemen have lost their lives.

As I sat reading the news in the newspaper, I got a call from Manika Police Station. They were bringing in someone with a bullet injury. The inspector did not have much idea about where the injury was.

The victim was in his early 20s. The bullet had entered his right flank more towards the back and exited on the left flank. Clinically, it looked like it may have gone through his vertebral column. However, his neurological examination appeared normal. But, he was in severe pain.

We did X-Rays and a ultrasound. It was almost certain that it did not enter the peritoneal cavity. Amazingly, there was no obvious involvement of the vertebrae. On very careful examination of the lateral spine X-Ray, we could make out an area suggestive of cavitation of the soft tissue with some involvement of the spinous processes of the vertebrae.

We gave the family the option of taking him to a higher centre which they obliged. The story was that the victim unwittingly got in between crossfire between two naxalite groups.

Many of our friends and relatives question our logic of serving in such a place where there is always danger lurking around. After the gruesome murder of Sr. Valsa John, it is quite obvious that anybody working for the welfare of the poor can fall victim to the violence that can be unleashed in communities like ours.

The patient with the bullet wound was an ominous reminder about the very dangerous society we are part of. We request your prayers. . .