Young minds need inspirations. Young minds need the courage to dream. And as a young budding doctor, 5 years ago, I found both at a place called Sargur in H.D. Kote taluk in Karnataka. A remote place, you may not have heard about. Swami Vivekananda youth movement was started by a bunch of doctors from my Alma mater: Mysore Medical college. I chose to spend one month of my Community health posting during my medical internship at the Vivekananda memorial hospital in Sargur in 2013.
Disclaimer: I do not work for this organization, nor do I have any vested interest in writing this article, it is purely and plainly in the hope that the amazing mission that this team has is accomplished.
In this article, I will share the life-changing experiences I had there, and at the end, you can choose, if you wish to, to donate to the cause of this amazing organization.
The story of how the organization was started to benefit the rural and tribal areas of H.D. kote was heartening. The story of how they started from literally nothing, to now being respected as a committed team was truly inspiring. As a young mind, I learnt that it took courage to do something different, something good. It would have been easy to choose a well-trodden path. Set up a clinic/ work in an urban area. But these doctors chose to take the road less traveled. They chose to serve rural and tribal people in a remote place. I learnt that an organization as philanthropist as this one, had to be built brick by brick to do what it’s able to do today: touch hundreds of lives.
And what exactly are they doing?
They have an earthy hospital, far away from urban life. They run a school that provides equal opportunity to tribal children. I remember being inspired by the paintings that the children from tribal areas had made. They have provided employment to local people (80% of their employees are locals). They run a socioeconomic empowerment program that focuses on income generation activities. They have a community radio! As interns, we had used this platform to communicate health messages to the people! How exciting! I learnt here that health is not equal to hospitals. It has other social and economic determinants. Visit their website to learn more about them: http://www.svym.org/
The hospital is unique in more ways than one. Two systems of medicine practice together there. Allopathy or ‘modern’ medicine; if you could call it that and Ayurveda. Doctors from the two systems, work cordially, discuss plans for the patient. This is unique because, it shows that the patient’s interest is at heart. Elsewhere, you would see doctors from different systems or even different specialties belittling each other; but here I could see that there was mutual respect. An important lesson I learnt: Respect other doctors and respect other systems of medicine; always keep patient’s interest at heart.
The experience that changed my life, truly and completely was the mobile health clinics that took us deep into the belly of the tribal and rural areas. A team that consisted of a nurse, a community health worker and I, made a few ‘trips’ in the mobile health van. The van had medicines and basic equipment to help reach patients who could not reach the hospital. It was on these trips that I learnt so much about the people and their way of life. I was always inclined to doing public health as a specialty. But these trips made me surer than ever before! SVYM will always hold a dear place in my heart for this very reason. For watering the soil in my mind, so that plants of similar ideology grow!
And what do I say about the people who lead this program! Humble abodes of knowledge, these doctors have inspired me to no end. I could sit for hours listening to the experiences and ideologies of these people.
The SVYM team has had a program called “Palliative health care” since 2009-10.
Now what does this complex term mean?
A lot of people think it means end-of-life care. But it is much more than that. It is an approach that brings down the suffering of people who are burdened with life-threatening diseases.
This program offers at home services to people who are suffering with life-threatening diseases. This helps the patients and their families immensely because it cuts down their costs of going to a hospital to seek a doctor’s consult. The team offers solutions to the problems these families are burdened with.
The program has collaborated with the Mysore Medical college and now wants to start a palliative care block in Mysore. This will help house patients when they need short bouts of hospitalization, during their long battle against their disease.
It is to build this Palliative care block that a musical fundraising event on March 4th, in Chowdiah memorial hall, Bengaluru has been organized by SVYM.
Donations, if you wish to:
Name of beneficiary: Swami Vivekananda Youth movement
Canara Bank, Jayalakshmipuram branch
A/c no. 0566101026241
IFSC code: CNRB0000566
Contribute to a world with lesser suffering!