Uttarakhand disaster: Hospital volunteers lend a helping hand

New Delhi: Voluntary health groups and workers’ unions from the national Capital and several other states are lending a helping hand to offer medical assistance to surviving victims in disaster-hit Uttarakhand.

From Delhi the second medical team, comprising volunteers, nurses, paramedical staff and doctors equipped with medicines and diagnostic facilities, left today and is now on its way to Banswara, a remote area of the flood-affected northern state.

As a part of the joint campaign, initiated by the Kalawati Hospital Workers Union in co-ordination with National Public Health Alliance and Medical Service Centre, nursing and paramedical staff were enrolled and medicines collected worth Rs 4-5 lakh that were dispatched with the second team itself.

Nursing unions and workers’ associations of Lady Hardinge Medical College, Central Government Health Scheme, Asha Kiran Home, Centralised Accident and Trauma Services and Safdarjung Hospital are also involved in mobilising all type of support for this noble cause.

“We have collected medicines from our staff as well as those who are willing from outside. Earlier, for the first team sent on July 5 in a span of eight days we collected Rs 1 lakh, medicines of worth Rs 50,000 in the form of physician samples and remaining were unconsumed from health employees. We also purchased medicines and arranged medical equipment to run four medical and field camps at Rudraprayag and Banswara,” said VS Dahiya, president of the Kalawati Hospital Workers Union.

At the camps, there are specialists of medicine, ortho, rehabilitation, etc., along with arrangements for complete haemogram, electrolytes, glucose, routine cytology and urine microscopy.

Health workers part of the teams said, much hype was created through media at the time of evacuation of stranded pilgrims and tourists but local residents who have lost everything in this disaster due to the callous attitude of the state and Central governments are still at the receiving end without any food and medical treatment.

In such a situation, the voluntary health groups urge all sections of society and particularly health professionals to come forward as volunteers and donate generously for medical relief fund for the victims of Uttarakhand disaster.

Source: The Tribune

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