Landour
Namaste!
This week, I am in Landour, which is the hillstation that I lived in for a month last time I was here. It's so nostalgic to be back here. I can remember the restaurants and the stores that we went to last time. I'm staying at the Landour Community Hospital. It's a pretty small hospital with about three or four doctors. The cases that I have seen are a little more serious that what I saw in the villages. In the villages, people mostly had colds and fevers.
Yesterday, I saw a tubal ligation, abcess drainage, and removal of a benign tumor. And today I got to see them remove a cyst from the top of a man's head. It was super cool. The power went out during the tubal ligation and it took a few minutes before the generator kicked in, but otherwise, it was all pretty standard.
You would faint if you saw the conditions that the doctors and patients have to deal with. Chipping paint, stains on the sheets and surgical gowns, rusty tables, power outages....the list goes on and on. It's quite shocking, but then again, what other choice do they have? The patients do get better. They come in with worms, infections, and abcesses and leave as healthy as they can be.
This trip has been very eye opening. Last trip I was learning about the country, its history, people, and culture. Now I'm actually confronting and facing the history, people, and culture. It's one thing to see people living in makeshift tents on the side of the road when I drive by. It's quite another thing to see the people come to you with tuburculosis, boils, and worms that they have to deal with in their day to day lives. We try to help them, but there's only so much that cough syrup, acetaminaphin, and antibiotics will do if the people continue to live in dank and unsanitary conditions. It's very sad to know that they'll probably come back in a month with the exact same symptoms.
This week, I am in Landour, which is the hillstation that I lived in for a month last time I was here. It's so nostalgic to be back here. I can remember the restaurants and the stores that we went to last time. I'm staying at the Landour Community Hospital. It's a pretty small hospital with about three or four doctors. The cases that I have seen are a little more serious that what I saw in the villages. In the villages, people mostly had colds and fevers.
Yesterday, I saw a tubal ligation, abcess drainage, and removal of a benign tumor. And today I got to see them remove a cyst from the top of a man's head. It was super cool. The power went out during the tubal ligation and it took a few minutes before the generator kicked in, but otherwise, it was all pretty standard.
You would faint if you saw the conditions that the doctors and patients have to deal with. Chipping paint, stains on the sheets and surgical gowns, rusty tables, power outages....the list goes on and on. It's quite shocking, but then again, what other choice do they have? The patients do get better. They come in with worms, infections, and abcesses and leave as healthy as they can be.
This trip has been very eye opening. Last trip I was learning about the country, its history, people, and culture. Now I'm actually confronting and facing the history, people, and culture. It's one thing to see people living in makeshift tents on the side of the road when I drive by. It's quite another thing to see the people come to you with tuburculosis, boils, and worms that they have to deal with in their day to day lives. We try to help them, but there's only so much that cough syrup, acetaminaphin, and antibiotics will do if the people continue to live in dank and unsanitary conditions. It's very sad to know that they'll probably come back in a month with the exact same symptoms.
posted by Jenna Furley | 5:38 AM
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