Things Progress, but not as expected (although that, too, was expected)

Anand and I awoke an hour and a half after the alarm first sounded. But hey, it was only 7:30am – so plenty of day to go yet. Wolfing down Indian-style omelettes & frothy, sugary chai we phoned our new-found Rickshaw-wallah. He arrived in record time and we were off to Sindhudurg Civil Hospital.

After being assured on the telephone that Dr Kulkarni, the Civil Surgeon (big shot, basically) was on site and waiting for us, we arrived to find that “Dr Kulkarni is in Kohlapur”. Argh. No worries though, the morning ended up supremely. We met the RMO (Regional Medical Officer?), along with various other specialists who popped in. They seemed mostly unimpressed – although the link that Anand had formed with Dr Kulkarni was to be our saviour. At the mention of his name, things happened. The letter Zafar had sent also proved to be essential in the fight to win over this group.

After an hour in an office we were led out by a junior doctor, another Dr Kulkarni – he showed us round the hospital, and this is where the medical knowledge came in handy. Although I am not really here in a capacity as a medic, these people were keen to see that I wasn’t just a “social-minded” person.

They were quite interested in my interest as a medic in nutrition and information. I explained that one ‘strand’ of my six-year course is in social, preventative and public medicine. This satisfied them.

The RMO talked about how ‘prevention is best’, but that they can’t prevent everything because of three factors:

1) Ignorance 2) Poverty 3) Illiteracy

He described cases where people couldn’t afford the Rs30 bus fare to receive top-class free medical treatment. He also described 3rd trimester bleeding that goes un-seen to due to people thinking that it’s normal.

We discussed the healthcare system setup – it seems that there is a strong referral system and that most stuff is dealt with at the primary level. I’ve been promised introductions to the MCH officer and to the PHC centres & Anganwadi centres.

As usual, language was brought up as a barrier. How will you communicate? Well – I answered – I hadn’t thought of that…

Met Colonel Sudhir Sawant, local politician, hero and my friend. I told him exactly what I need to get my research done – two people have been assigned to do the job. I think it might just work. This includes links to womens self-help groups. Our scabby guestroom is also going to be done up, well – if we have time to pick some furniture!

In the afternoon we met Dr Kantak, an ajurvedic gynae consultant. He was very interesting and talked about the interactions between the allopathic and ayurvedic hospitals. Apparently women aren’t using their hospital for ANC services at the moment because the government hospital, under the NRHM has reduced its prices drastically.

People are being receptive to us, which is nice. Lots of people speak English, which is surprising and nice… There’s lots to do tomorrow – but before then, an essay to write (uh oh)!