Journalism of Courage
Pushkar Bhide did not hesitate when he saw an appeal that a local hospital in Kathmandu was in dire need of orthopaedic surgeons. The city-based doctor is already in Nepal surveying villages and identifying people who require medical attention, and cardiologist Dr Abhijit Vaidya and another team of doctors from the city will be joining him shortly.
Vaidya, who had set up a rural medical referral centre at Parandwadi near Pune and rushed its team of doctors to Latur for providing medical treatment at ten quake-affected villages, had also started training common citizens in disaster management. His team of Arogya Sena (Health army) also provided relief work in Jammu and Kashmir last year and now a team of six doctors including non-medicos will leave for Nepal on Thursday.
Dr Nitin Ketkar, a radiologist, Prof Pramod Dalvi, Mahendra Waghela, and other team members will work in the remote villages under Vaidya’s guidance. “We are planning to take medicines and equipment worth nearly Rs five lakh, including bandages, glucometers, ECG machine and others,” Vaidya added.
Meanwhile, the Indian Medical Association state unit has prepared a batch of 40 doctors ready to go to Nepal. Dr Jayesh Lele, President Elect said that they were waiting for a go-ahead from the Central team.
Presently, a total of 13 doctors from the core team is in Nepal, Dr K K Aggarwal, the honourary secretary general of the central unit of IMA, said. “Our doctors in Nepal are trying their level best to do surgeries on the injured. We are coordinating the effort and will send other doctors,” he said
In Pune, Dr Avinash Bhutkar, the city unit president of IMA, said that there was no need for a rush to send doctors to Nepal as some teams are already functional there and the entire medical and treatment process will take a while.
