What gives

What a strange day it has been!One of our senior colleagues said adieu to the world .Loads and loads of cholera patients flooded the hospital.We had a farewell party for one of our oldest staffs. Decided today to film our own documentaries for advocacy and IEC.Felt happy after the decision was made.Received the TB Alert's 10th anniversary magazine-saw pictures of old timers all over.....life goes on...tomorrow is another day!

One of the responsiilties I hold is in the public-private sector of RNTCP.As a boost to the existant programme one of the donor agencies have donated a van inorder to dissipate information to the public on TB.I have been desperately trying to knock all doors to lay my hands on a decent movie on tubercculosis inorder to use it for IEC activities and I draw a complete blank from every corner.The RNTCP in it's web-site talks about all sorts of TB material available but we find a gap.There are no movies in the CTC as well. Hello!why put up exotic promises in the web-site when we have no intention of following it up with action??Besides what are we really doing ?We are really doing the government's job for them with no help whatsoever from them. The new NGO scheme came into practise from the October of last year but the government is still sitting on it without any MOUs being signed. RNTCP used to be a department that actually used to work in Palamu and within a span of one year it...

The lady was in her mid-twenties-a tribal from a place called Mahuadar.Mahua-is a fruit from which the local beer is brewed and dar is a hill.The place is predominantly a mixture of catholics,protestants with some animists.It's famous for it's waterfalls amongst the locals-it's a picnic spot.They also have a convent cum a clinic there-sick patients are often reffered to our hospital. This lady obviously had an acute abdominal pathology which needed immediate exploration.They had come to us as a last resort .She had bled into the abdomen with symptoms of what looked like a ruptured ectopic pregnancy-it's when the baby is concieved in places other then the womb.She had lost a lot of blood,her haemoglobin was down to 2 gm%.I called Dulari our nurse anaesthetist-she agreed to give anaesthesia if two pints of blood could be arranged. They had no donors but somehow the blood was arranged and the case posted. I had never done a laparotomy before but after opening umpteen numbe...

A halpless senior citizen walks into the OPD with a classical complaint of aches and pains all over.She has apparently been to the local ojha and has been told that a thief has entered her spine and needs to be chased out.How? I asked.She says it can be done in two ways-by kicking the back-side or by blowing some mantras into the spine-I thought the ojha sure had a sense of humour. In the mean-time there is a silent revolution going on through the net,signature campaigns,etc to support Dr Binayak Sen’s cause.There are two sides to every story –so I understand, from the discussions from different forums,write-ups and opinions.I fully sympathise with Dr.Sen in the matter .I don’t agree with the naxal philosophy of declaring war against the state.I find it painful that in this day and age in India- voices of reason ,of concern ,voices that support the cause of the weak can be clamped down by state machinaries.Who is Dr.Binayak Sen ?What is his case?The government of India owes it’s citize...

The lights in Palamu have been hijacked-I literally mean that.I believe a group of MCC cadres actually walked up to the power house from where our lights are supplied and have locked it .They have demanded guns AK-47 in place of electricity.The best part is that the only places where the power is supplied from the point is, our hospital and the town of Satbarwa. So the nights are literally spent walking around like a zombie in the campus looking for a drift of stray gale -or sleeping under the stars in the stone benches chatting with Sona Devi about the mosquitoes,the heat,all in dehati-which I love the sound of. Wow!even as I write this I can hear the skies tear apart allowing a torrent of Norwesters through.Come the baisakhi,there is a rush for green mangoes all over the campus.You find them in all sizes,the mangoes and the people who run for them.They make a cool drink to beat the heat with it and it is just so delicious.The green mangoes have to be roasted over the firewood to get ...

A badly mucked up case of ruptured uterus came in from Chattarpur.The lady was in serious distress, the foetal product seemed to be in the abdominal cavity.There was no foetal heart sound.An emergency call was given for anaesthesia and the case posted.On opening the abdomen there was blood all over ,the placenta was outside the ruptured uterus and the baby,still and lifeless -half in and half out but within the gestational-sac.I extracted the baby,no breathing,no heart-beat but suddenly it coughed.The anaesthetist and the floor nurse pounced on the baby and with vigourous resuscitation the baby was soon pink and breathing on it’s own.It was a strange experience,but for the grace of God and the thin membrane which had protected the baby he would have been just another statistic .He was the first male offspring after two female children-they had apparently been to the local dai,who had done everything from a massage to injecting pitrocin to speed up the delivary and ensure the complicati...

The quintessential dawn, Tip-toeing past the dark of the night, Unvealing ,reverent, eternal moment waiting and watching the genteel of the creation enjoy the morn. Chirping,singing,hooting, Dripping,sparkling, Cleansing, Resting – Is this Eden?