“To be able to be there in the presence of so many individuals, sharing a little part of their lives, to provide medical guidance and ultimately being able to help them is what this profession is all about”
Switch India in association with Robin Hood Army held a free health checkup campaign and food distribution drive at a remote village in Khopoli on 14th February, 2021.
We all reached Khopoli station at 10am and from there we were ushered to the camp site by the Robin Hood Army volunteers. It was approximately 45 minutes away from the Khopoli station.
All the villagers were informed about this campaign well in advance. We reached the camp site and within minutes, all arrangements were made by Robin Hood Army volunteers. The camp started at around 11:00am.
We commenced with the health checkup and medicine distribution. Three stations were arranged in total. There were two volunteers on the first station taking vitals, three volunteers on the second station taking history of the patient, diagnosing and prescribing medicines. Following which the patients were asked to go to the third station where the said medicines were being distributed.
Right from children to senior citizens, everyone came in to get a health checkup. We saw around 100-120 patients and 82 children were dewormed. We witnessed patients with gangrene due to undiagnosed diabetes, cataracts, TB, fungal infections. One of the patients had a dislocated humerus since a year but she couldn’t do anything about it due to inaccessible healthcare. It really goes to show how much development is still required in our country especially in the healthcare sector.
All the villagers were very cooperative so the camp went effortlessly. Medicines were dispensed to all the patients based on their diagnosis.
Once the medical camp concluded, we began distributing the food supplies. Robin Hood Army volunteers had carried 2 trucks full of food to the village. Along with food and medicines, clothes were also distributed to all the women in the village.
The food distribution ended at 3:30pm and we all went home content with how the day went.
We were very pleased that the day went so much better than we had planned all because we had immense support from the volunteers of Robin Hood Army and the villagers.
We thank all our volunteers for their sincere efforts. It took a united team effort by all of them to make this camp successful.
