Kalkaji...

Today I did a morning clinic in Kalkaji.  When I say "morning", it went on until gone 2pm!  It was busy - we saw around 45 patients.  I visited Kalkaji 2 years ago when I sat in with Lily, a Nurse Practitioner who was running an antenatal clinic.

Kalkaji has grown to be a huge slum and apparently has a population of 40000 - the same as Yeovil!  This is the view as you approach the Community Centre Building:

 The centre itself is the only one in Asha I have been to that has a little courtyard.  It's actually quite a pretty building:

 Here are Lily and Dr R who led the clinic.  We discussed some of the more difficult cases as we went along.

One of our patients was a six day old baby with a fever:

When the clinic had finally finished and I had demolished a couple of trusty cereal bars for lunch, I met the five Community Health Volunteers, one of which had worked with Asha for 22 years and another for 20 years.

We discussed how life had been before Asha:  All the houses were poor quality and small.  No children went to school.  One of the CHV's had lost her own 11 month old son to diarrhoea because she didn't know what to do.  Women were afraid to be delivered in hospital. Many died in childbirth.  Many children were malnourished and died. Measles was common and severe.  We compared that with life now:  They estimated that only about 5% of houses are poor quality by their estimation.  All children up to age 15/16 are in school with about 10% staying on to year 12. Few children die and measles is only seen occasionly and is mild due to near 100% immunisation. Few are malnourished. Nearly all women deliver in hospital and maternal deaths are rare.  Most people have jobs.

Then I met the Bal Mandal girls (boys attend school in the afternoon).  They were once again welcoming with their smiles and we had a brief chat.

Unfortunately my visit was cut short as the driver had come to collect me early for some reason lost in translation.  I was quite sad to leave them so soon but they gave me a lovely send off with smiles and waves and cries of "Goodbye Sir"!

As I got back to the flat earlyish I went for a stroll to some of the further shops, where Freddy told me I could print some photos.  I found it and the staff were friendly and helpful (the shop had A/C :-)) and I got some 7x5 inch pictures for 12 rupees each (15p)  They took an hour to do so I wandered further and found an air conditioned Mall with an even bigger supermarket on 3 floors.  So I bought some more bits including some more Tiger biscuits and wandered home via the photoshop.  I was desperate for a shower and cup of tea - Assam today - which is still my favourite.