Mother & Child-Prevention of Disability

This report is about RISHI .Presently six years old , Rishi is a little boy  with severe multiple disabilities. His parents Madhu who is 46 years old and Suman who is 36 years old  have a better financial background from most other residents of this low socio economic community of Dakishinpuri where they live and where we have our service  center. Both parents are educated as well as is the grandfather ..The father works as a clerk in an Information Technology Institute and the mother until Rishis birth was a Hindi teacher in a local school .This was a refreshingly different background from parents who usually contact us .

Rishi was born in  June 2006 and was diagnosed with Jaundice within three days of his birth. This meant a longer than expected stay in the hospital.However as he grew the parents  realized his severe limitations and began the heartbreaking journey to a variety of hospitals and Clinics . They report that at  none of these hospitals did they get any sort of  support or advice on how to go forward now or how to work with the child who obviously had a range of disabilities. The diagnosis they had received and which was on the hospital OPD card showed that Rishi was spastic with Diplegia and hypoxia.He also had speech impediments and was intellectually disabled.

He was referred to us by a neighbour and when they did come over they were amazed that in our center we had clinic offering rehabilitation and therapy on a daily basis ..Although they had heard about SAMDHAAN they thought they would get better advice and guidance from a big hospital .

At the first assessment carried out by our pediatrician we found that Rishi had delayed milestones in every single functional area and that he was still dependent for all bodily functions on his mother .The hospitals they visited had only told them the extant of Rishi's disability but not what to do about it .

Rishi now comes for his rehab every single day .Added to this is the fact that Suman  is acutely aware of the family's loss of income through her having  to resign from her teaching job and finds it difficult to work with Rishi .Our job now is counseling Suman along with doing whatever we an to help Rishi .The initial goal is making him less dependent .

So when we reach out to children like Rishi it is almost always the mother or both parents who need help..Hence our need for funds to keep a professional team alert and functioning willingly  .