I was in the highest of spirits and though I am tired and down with fever, the
spirit is still alive.
This eventful and memorable
journey began on the morning of July 1st from New Delhi and I reached
Kotdwar the same day where I was received by the director of Karuna Sevak
Sansthan. Here I was briefly informed about my schedule for the next few days,
and I asked for the list of medications that was provided by DFY, my first
mistake was I did not crosscheck it with the drugs actually available. Neither
did I know the spectrum of diseases that I would encounter. The same day we
headed towards Rudraprayag which is 200 kilometres away, and it was a long journey.
My team comprised of four social workers from the NGO “Chetnalaya” in Delhi, my
sibling Anushree and two sisters from the church.
Day 1: Rampur
The next morning we headed to a
village Rampur, the first hurdle was a fallen tree across the road; soon people
with camouflaged uniform reached the site to make way. As expected we reached
the camp site late and did keep a lot of people waiting. I could only start
seeing my patients by 12 noon. Since I was the only doctor and had more than
100 patients to see, I had to rush through. The camp site was carefully chosen
by the local volunteers, it was an empty shop on a common path for the people
of neighboring 3-4 villages to reach the other side of the river, by a narrow
ropeway bridge which was partly damaged but still functional. 
Contrary to what I expected most
were chronic ailments with backache, knee pain, gastritis. The spectrum was
minor injuries, myalgia with fever and itching all over the body including the eyes
(probably a viral), fungal skin infection. Children were sickest of all, few
came with furunculosis, otitis media, fever with huge tender cervical lymph nodes
(I had not seen such nodes in ages). I would treat symptomatically plus with
antibiotics when needed. I did prescribe deworming to most of my patients, one
limitation was I lacked syrup albendazole, so would advise the mothers to crush
the tab and give it to the child. Explaining the prescription and handing over
drugs was a job my sibling and the sisters did amazingly well. The local
volunteers Bhuvan and Vikas would help me understand the dialect whenever I
faced a problem. The weather was not in my favour at all. It was very hot and
humid, with a lot flies around .I was very tired. Even though the roads, the
electricity poles, the bridges had all fallen apart but my phone always had a
signal. In between I did call my obstetrician friends asking for help on how to
treat PID.
We tried to cover for
deficiencies of Day 1, few drugs that were missing were bought by the local
pharmacy at Rudraprayag, I demanded for face masks, gloves and I got them. I
spent my nights at a school hostel in Gholtir which was about 35 km downhill,
though I would have preferred to stay in nearby hotels but the organizers would
not take chance with our security, and we did not question it further.
Day 2: Tilwara
Today we had a new hurdle, a part
of the road had been completely washed off, and bulldozers were at work making
a new temporary kaccha road.
We left our taxi, trekked over a very steep terrain,
reached the other side and hired another taxi, Today we kept no one waiting.
The campsite was again a shop in a market place hence a great footfall of
patients was expected but that’s not how it turned out to be. The patient
profile was pretty similar with less sick children. A woman came with
infertility and two patients with acne too (both boys). Our lunch use to be
bread and jam, bananas and tea, and it had to be quick. At 2:00 I was joined by
another senior doctor who had been on such missions before, she was of great
help and I had a lot to learn from her.
Today I got plenty of time to
talk to the local people, who told me about the magnitude of financial and
economic loss. Today I also felt I was still inaccessible to the people who
needed me most, but the next two camps would prove otherwise.
On my journey back to the base, I
saw trucks full of relief material, but because of damaged roads it could not
reach the villages most affected.
Day 3: Sauri
By the morning of day 3, I had
insect bite and mild fever but one tablet of paracetamol helped me through.
Knowing that today I would have to trek 5 to 6 Km to reach the camp site got me
more excited, as this is what I had pictured in my mind all along. But it was
more tiring than expected. Steep terrain, narrow paths, walking at the edges of
paddy fields with constant risk of falling down. After the rain it just got
worse and risky. I would take off my shoes and walk through the paddy with my
feet sinking into the mud with every step that I took. It took 2 hours to reach
the site which was like a tiny bus stop by the road. Today we saw 118 patients,
since we were two , I could give more time to each asking about their families,
houses and farmlands, and would tell them it would all be fine, which I knew
was far from true. Despite their loss, they were very happy to see us there;
they could still smile back when you did.
Day 4: Ganganagar
I still had a day before I had to
return to Delhi, I told the organizers that I would like to do another camp. So
this was not preplanned and the community had not been mobilized and informed
about the same unlike other days. And heavy rain was predicted too. Despite the
apprehensions we went ahead. It had rained heavily the night before, so it was
all very slippery .My colleague did fall down too hurting herself not too much
though. The shorter route was even worse, hence our local guides did not give
into our temptation of trekking less and we took a route longer but safer.
Carrying a stick like grannies was of great help. The day turned out to be very
eventful with maximum number of patients.
I treated a lot of hypertension today. Some patients of CAD came with
old prescription just for drugs as the local pharmacy had run out of the same,
and these villages were badly disconnected. But neither could we help such
patients. Some asked for medications prophylactically, just in case they fell sick,
they knew they had nowhere else to go. Just when we were about to leave we got
an unconscious patient post convulsion. He needed to be in a hospital, once
again the relatives complained that it would be hours before they reached the
closest hospital, they would have to trek through the same route we took with
the patient on their back, hence they repeatedly asked us to do something, but
giving them false hope was useless hence we made our stand clear, put an iv
cannula and a bag of fluid and asked the relatives to take him immediately.
When it was time to go back, it was
raining heavily, getting darker, the river was angry , the makeshifts road were
falling apart, reminded me of Man vs. wild on discovery channel. And believe me
I can’t put that journey back on paper; I was genuinely scared, fearing our
Bolero would skid of the road anytime. But it was thrilling. And I am glad I
was there.
My hosts were amazing bunch of
people, and I would thank them again and again for the great time I had with
them.
