By Anant Nevatia | President
It has indeed been overwhelming to receive funds that have allowed us to set up and operate ten primary health care centres (5 Rural Clinics and 5 Urban Clinics) in across four districts of West Bengal, India reaching out to over 1.1 million people. Each centre runs four departments namely General Medicine, Optometry, Dentistry and Homoeopathy. At the cost of INR 60 ($ 1), patients are provided diagnosis and free medicine for seven days. The centres also provide free spectacles to those in need. Beside this, each primary health care centre, in collaboration with other organizations, facilitates free cataract and cleft lip/palate surgeries for those in need.
The task at hand is huge and our intention over the last few years, has been to spread out and serve as many people as we can, by establishing more such healthcare centres. The need in the current times is to scale up our existing operations to other districts of the state. In order to operate and set up new centres, we require constant funding. The funds would be used for purchasing medical equipment, hiring medical as well as support staff, staff at the Head Office, setting up infrastructure at the clinics, purchasing medicines etc.
Since the Government run medical facilities are sparse in these rural areas , news of patients benefitting from the treatment received at our clinic spreads to the neighbouring villages , resulting in constant increase of footfall of patients at our clinics. We therefore feel the need to reach out to more such areas addressing the needs of more patients.
The following is the feedback of a patient who is benefitted from our services.
Abdul , a small farmer lives near our centre at Namkhana. Since childhood, he has been neglecting his teeth which are common phenomena in rural areas. Most of his teeth are in bad condition with cavities. All along, he has been bearing the pain and the problem because he had no idea where to go and get treatment with the paltry sum he earns. In rural area, qualified dentist with all modern apparatus is a next to impossible scenario. Hearing from a friend who was treated by us earlier, he came to our centre along with son who was also suffering from the same problem.
At the centre he got himself registered and guided by our paramedical staff was taken to the dental department. After checking him up it was found that he has deep cavity in at least in two of his teeth which needs extraction. Since his age was nearing sixty and a blood sugar test was conducted. When no sugar was detected after the test, the extraction was done and the required medicine was given for post curative care. He was asked by our staff to report back after a week and see the doctor again to ensure that everything is alright. Instructions were given to him by our paramedical staff regarding awareness of dental hygiene which he should follow along with his family.
It is doubtless to say that he landed back in our centre after the week along with his son who registered himself also at our centre. He had bought a tin of tooth powder for the whole family which he had brought along to the centre to show to our staff for their recommendations. Many people like Abdul have found relief from their dental problems at our centre. Now more and more people from the surrounding villages are coming to our centre for dental treatment.
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