Guest Column
Helping to Make a Difference Overseas With children almost grown, Wembley GP Dr Lin Arias decided to take her medical skills to Kolkata and writes here about the inspirational clinical work being done there. As doctors, we share a passion for helping people. We want to use our brains, our hands and our compassion to relieve suffering. We enjoy making people better. We are also a privileged lot and we like to challenge ourselves, inside and outside of medicine. There are amazing people doing wonderful, life-changing work whose stories never make it into the media. One such person is Dr Jack Preger, a doctor from the UK, who came to India in 1979 to help the slum dwellers of Calcutta, or Kolkata as it is now called, and started the NGO Calcutta Rescue (CR) more than 30 years ago. CR is no longer just Dr Jack and his doctor’s bag. It operates three standing clinics with doctors and allied staff; a street doctor van, which visits the slums; and two schools to help the children grow up healthy, and educationally robust enough to be able to enter the government school system.
pharmaceutical education sessions for the clinic doctors, who are paid a token fee for their work and who therefore earn their living outside of their sessions with CR.
CR also runs programs that teach craft skills to disabled workers. These men and women produce handicrafts, which CR sells, earning the workers an income and improving their chances of gaining other employment. The sewing group, for instance makes school uniforms. All their products are Fair Trade certified.
My latest visit eventuated after a vigorous email exchange with Deputy Medical Officer Dr Ghosh. She idenitifed that the nurse and doctors who provided maternal and child health care could benefit from education and support. Having a DRACOG and a lot of experience in antenatal care at KEMH, this sounded like a role I could fill.
Patients waiting to be seen by the Street Doctor, Instruction packet for taking medicine.
For two weeks I sat in with nurse Sheila as she saw the antenatal and postnatal women. She assessed infants and toddlers who had been identified as malnourished and who were on the supplemental feeding program CR runs. Sadly, sometimes the children don't gain weight. In one instance, the father was taking the milk for himself or selling it.
Dr Ghosh, nurse Sheila and Dr Lin Arias at the main clinic
A Governing Council oversees the work of a dedicated staff. CR is supported by international groups, which raise money for its work and send volunteers, mainly allied health workers, to help and train local staff. To ensure sustainability, it is all run and managed by locals. Outsiders, like myself, primarily help in a teaching role. Pharmacists from Germany teach local pharmacists (who don’t have training) about the medicines they stock and dispense to the clinics. They also run
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6ISITINGåTHEåVARIOUSåCLINICSåYOUåMUSTåBEå prepared to see anything from accident trauma, coughs and colds, rashes, worms to pneumonia, major trauma and leprosy. Clinic and outreach staff are always on the lookout for white patches of skin and persistent cough, signs of leprosy and TB, respectively. These patients are educated about the need for hospital review and CR uses its vehicles to take them to the hospital clinic for care on the day as a matter of urgency. One morning clinic was devoted to following UPåANDåDISPENSINGåMEDICINEåTOå()6åPOSITIVEå patients, many of whom were teens and young adults. All clinic patients are required to attend an educational session each time they visit the clinic. They are also provided with a simple breakfast and their travel expenses as some come from over an hour away.
Postnatal patients waiting for Sheila’s clinic to start.
to fight for the rights of the poor to access health care and it’s humbling to see what he’s achieved against so many odds. To participate even in a small way is a privilege. I’ve been to India several times, it's an exhilarating place full of movement, colour, fantastic food, smells, beauty, and changing scenery. I find it enthralling. No, I don’t like the pollution, the garbage, the congestion, the spitting, and the poverty. However, rarely is it overpowering and it’s not hard to find 10 minutes out of the hustle and bustle to find some peace and quiet, collect my thoughts and equilibrium then get back out on the streets of Kolkata again.
Now in his 80s, Dr Jack Preger continues
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