April was a busy month. It sped by on wings. We had a series of camps. The first was an ENT camp, with Drs Regi Thomas, Associate Professor of Ent in CMC Vellore, and Dr. Rajan seeing over two hundred patients in three days. They also performed ear surgeries here. This has become an annual event, thanks to CMC Vellore. The next camp is scheduled in October, when Dr. George Ani will conduct it with another ent surgeon. This allows the people here to access this specialised care and even get their surgeries here. We are also thinking of making the provision for hearing aids available in the next year.
[singlepic id=230 w=320 h=240 float=none]
Dr. Kenny David, orthopedic surgeon and spine specialist, also from CMC Vellore has just finished an orthopedic camp here, seeing a large number of patients and performing orthopedic surgery. Some of the surgeries he performed were a boon to patients who had been nursing orthopedic conditions for years and had been unable to go to any other centre to access the care they needed.
Suraj (name changed) was a boy who had been suffering from tuberculosis of the hip for the past two years which had eaten away the head of the femur, shortened his left leg and left him with a leg that he could not straighten out. Dr. Kenny did an excision arthroplasty by which he straightened the leg allowing healing which will allow the boy to walk, albeit with a limp. Similar corrective surgeries were performed on patients with malunited fractures of the arm and forearm. He also saw a large number of patients with backache, and operated on a young boy whose nerve was being compressed by a disc that had bulged out causing pain and altered sensation in one leg. The boy was discharged smiling yesterday.
[singlepic id=235 w=320 h=240 float=none]
Dr. Judy, Kenny’s wife is a specialist in rehabilitative medicine. She provided much needed input to the community rehabilitative program conducted by our physiotherapy department headed by Ms. Johanah Kancherla. They visited homes where patients who had sustained strokes or were otherwise disabled were being cared for by home carers, and provided advice and assistance to make the lives of these people a little easier, both for patient and the care giver. This program is now into its second year.
[singlepic id=234 w=320 h=240 float=none]
Students from CMC Vellore are also here on their “Secondary Hospital Program”. Six students have shadowed the doctors, travelled to village clinics, performed school health check ups, assisted surgery, and also gone trekking and rafting, which is a full schedule for just two weeks.
[singlepic id=236 w=320 h=240 float=none]