Preventive Health, Sanitation, Curative Health

Preventive health and Sanitation work – Volunteers went into each relief camp and village and provided health and nutrition advice.  We printed 70000 pamphlets on Cholera and Diarrhea prevention and treatment which our volunteers distributed in the camps.  We counseled mothers to give only boiled water to children – and organized stoves and storage for boiling of water.  We also chlorinated drinking water in many of the relief camps and villages and organized water quality monitoring in some villages. We also repaired several hand pumps that were damaged. We organized TT injections for sanitation workers and our own volunteers who were involved in debris clearing work.  We organized temporary toilets in many areas (a long pit dug up with planks for about 20 people to use at a time) and walled it with either thatch or just sarees. Every day we sanitized the toilets with bleaching powder.

Coming back to the Tsunami, we also did a lot of detailed health surveys to find out specific ailments. We followed patients with chronic illness like BP, Diabetes, TB, heart problems etc – who tend to forget to take their medicines and made sure they continued their medicines.  We got women volunteers to supply sanitary napkins and clean cloth to women who were having their periods.  We organized constant preventive check ups and immunization for children who needed it. We set up disease surveillance for quick identification of communicable diseases. We also provided counseling on hygiene and nutrition (and provided special foods) for pregnant women and small children.  In many place water tanks were cleaned and safe storage vessels for drinking water were organized.

Curative Health Services:   We organized a large number of OP clinics for children and women in relief camps and first aid help for those who were hurt.  We organized 10 medical teams with vans to travel to different villages and organized almost 80 mobile health camps in Nagai, Cuddalore and Chennai and 15 camps in Koovathur and Kelambakkam.  Each camp would be crowded with a huge number of patients who were tested, and given medicines. The first few camps were open camps and we found that women were unable to talk freely in the crowded atmosphere. After that we organized a large number of women’s health camps – with gynecologists and a separate room for check up (where such a room was not available a saree offered some minimal privacy).  This made a huge difference and a large number of women’s health problems were diagnosed and addressed through these camps.  Similarly we made sure that we held separate camps in dalit and irular areas – as in some places they found it hard to attend the camps along with other castes. This again ensured that these marginalized sections were able to specifically benefit from the camps.

As Prabha (one of our key coordinators responsible for organizing the camps) said, “The medical camps went on and on and on!” There was so much demand and need for these camps.