14Th ANNUAL REPORT-2007-08 "Love Cures People; the Ones Who Receive Love and the Ones Who Give It Too."
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14th ANNUAL REPORT-2007-08 "Love cures people; the ones who receive love and the ones who give it too." - Karl Menninger GRAM SEVA TRUST Dedicated to Health Care and Rural Development Gram Seva Trust has been dedicated to providing health care and development in and around rural area of Kharel in South Gujarat since its inception in 1994. The initial emphasis was on improving medical and surgical facilities in the Kharel hospital so that quality health care was available to the poor at no or very affordable cost. During these fourteen years, we have also strived to touch upon concerns other than health like malnutrition, plight of women and children, poverty, illiteracy and prevalent superstitions, since these impact health and well being of the people. While tackling malnutrition amongst pre-school children was our major initial project in the community, subsequent years saw other projects targeted towards community development focusing on mother and child health, women's economic activities, adolescent girls and boys' health, de-addictions and education. These activities have also been extended to the remote areas of Dang district through our satellite centre. During the various steps of our involvement with community related issues, women have emerged to be in the forefront be it income generating schemes, health education or formal school education. GST has identified this “Stree-Shakti” or Women Power as the most important step towards all development programs. Mahatma Gandhi held women in very high esteem and had articulated this as, “If by power is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior…if non-violence is the law of our being, the future is with women.” Even as many a government sponsored schemes do focus substantially on women empowerment like 33% reservation for women in Panchayats and Co- Operative bodies indicative of empowering the women. We wish to carry the faith of Mahatma Gandhi and feel that quantitative representation does not necessarily mean qualitative empowerment. And to bring about a qualitative change one has to start focusing on women at the grass roots by recognizing that there is need for training, education and skill building to enable more women especially from the villages to take leadership role in the development of entire community. It is, therefore, heartening to see the women taking a leadership role in all GST projects. GST has been selected as Service NGO by the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) program of the government under RCH II with the objective of reducing maternal and infant mortality. We are acutely conscious of the need to increase literacy status of the community in order to reach them the benefits of development programs. Poverty and migration in search of economic opportunities deny the children chance of receiving basic education while quality of education leaves lot to be desired even amongst those attending the schools in remote areas. In order to fulfill this need of the children affected by migration and/or extreme poverty, we propose to start a shelter home to house these children. It gives us great pleasure to present the annual report of our activities for the year 2007-08. We express our deep gratitude to our Trustees, Donors, friends and well wishers from India and abroad for their trust and support in our efforts and look forward to their continued support, co- operation, and guidance in our ongoing activities in the coming years too. Thanking you Place : Kharel Dr. Ashwin Shah Date : Dashera, 9 October 2008 Managing Trustee Annual Report 2007-2008 1 GRAM SEVA TRUST Dedicated to Health Care and Rural Development Gram Seva Trust (GST) has entered its 14th year of service to the deserving and needy population of Kharel and surrounding 300 villages. The medical services have been now extended to the largely tribal population in remote area of Dang district and Vansda. Hospital Services Quality medical care is offered at an affordable cost at the GST hospital to people from more than 300 villages. Those who can not afford to pay are treated free of cost or at an extremely subsidized cost. While all major specialty services like Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Orthopedics, OB & Gyn., Ophthalmology, ENT, and Pediatrics are available for both indoor and outdoor patients, some super-specialty clinics are also held by visiting doctors. All ancillary services like a fully equipped Laboratory, X-Ray, Sonography, and Physiotherapy are available in the hospital. The medical store in the premises supplies quality medicines and appliances at reasonable and discounted rates. The Emergency and the Laboratory have been upgraded with new equipment keeping in mind the increasing demand for higher care at the hospital. SN Department 2007-2008 1. OPD Patients Total 39465 2. Indoor Patient. 4299 3. Surgery 1001 4. Delivery 843 5. Laboratory Invesg. / No.of Patients 54810/18270 6. X-Ray 3440 7. Sonography 2078 9. Snake Bite Patients Treated 103 10. Physiotherapy 1403 There has been an impressive increase in the number of ante-natal registrations and 843 hospital deliveries as against 585 deliveries during previous year. The credit for this goes to our dedicated staff from OB-GYN, free antenatal check-ups and Chiranjivi scheme of the Government that provides for free institutional delivery to all expectant mothers fulfilling the criteria as beneficiaries. Our community health workers have worked hard to disseminate the information and awareness of this scheme to the community. Similarly there has been No. of patients admitted for snake bite progressive increase in the Sr. No. Year No. of patients number of patients coming to 1 2003-2004 62 GST for snake bite. Although the number of cases with poisonous 2 2004-2005 65 snake bites remains more or less 3 2005-2006 63 same, this increase in numbers 4 2006-2007 90 can be attributed to more 5 2007-2008 103 awareness of the community brought about by persistent health education programs and availability of the anti snake bite serum injection at the hospital. 2 Annual Report 2007-2008 GRAM SEVA TRUST Dedicated to Health Care and Rural Development New Services and Facilities Laboratory: The laboratory has been renovated with air conditioning and upgraded with new Electrophoresis machine for sickle cell and thalassemia diagnosis. Besides blood chemistry by a fully automatic analyzer and thyroid hormone assay are also available. Eye Department: Auto Refractometer for Computerized refraction errors and eye testing. Pediatric Department: Neonatal Resuscitation Trolley Super deluxe room with A/C comfort We intend starting an Intensive Care Unit in the coming year. Planning and civil work are already in progress. Free Antenatal Care Program Pregnant women from tribal and rural areas do not come for check-up because of ignorance and financial constraints. Sometimes this leads to serious complications during delivery at high risk to the mother and newborn. It is not unusual to see women with severe anemia, high blood pressure or heart disease presenting late in labor with serious consequences. A good antenatal care is of immense importance in reducing high maternal and newborn mortality. There are two antenatal clinics every week where all expectant mothers are examined and given laboratory and medicines/vaccines free of charge. Sonography is done every Tuesday afternoon to monitor the mother and the baby. This year 2122 women availed the services. These women are followed up in the village by the health workers and are given health education regarding safe motherhood. There is substantial increase in hospital deliveries because of Chiranjivi scheme. The eligible couples are sensitized on gender issues, family planning and healthy relationships aimed at happy families and households. GST is a recognized for Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission (PPTCT) of AIDS giving pre- One usually relates psychological problems like depression to urban life style and resultant stress. Following two case studies show that these problems affect the rural populations equally, if not more. The superstitions and mis-beliefs further complicate the matter resulting in long delays in diagnosis and sometimes denial of treatment to the patients. Ramilaben was a resident of a village in our project area. She and her husband were leading fairly happy life along with their three children. Ramila started behaving in a strange manner when her youngest daughter was about six months of age. She gave little or no attention to the family and household chores resulting in arguments and fights in the family. The problem gradually progressed to a stage where she was thought to be going completely crazy and some one suggested that she was possessed by an evil spirit. As a result she was taken to a 'Bhagat', a traditional village doctor cum exorcist. His treatment consisted of physical torture including severe beating. This led to further deterioration in her condition. GST health workers advised the family to bring her to the hospital for proper medical evaluation. The family was reluctant in the beginning but the health workers persisted visiting the family several times. They reasoned with her family members about the harm being caused not only to Ramila but to her children and entire family by continuing the treatment with the Bhagat. The husband finally agreed and brought her to see the psychiatrist at the GST hospital. She responded well to treatment with anti-depressants and her condition has improved over the time. She is now looking after her family and herself as before. She is still continuing the treatment and comes for regular follow-up. Annual Report 2007-2008 3 GRAM SEVA TRUST Dedicated to Health Care and Rural Development test and post-test counseling where required. Those willing and if found positive, treatment is provided to the mother to prevent transmission of virus to the child.