Medical Camp at Allathahalli : 14 Jun 2008

The Honeywell as part of their Week of Giving, on 14 Jun also organised a medical camp at a village close to Mallavalli, called Allathahalli ..

Close to 800 villagers were assembled at the school village to greet the volunteer team when the team reached at about 10am. Young, old, men, women.. educated, aware, completely unaware.. there were all of them. Waiting to pour their woes and get free medicines..

We assembled to for a bit of a "do", of lighting the lamp and soon after that school children were engaged in various competions. In the meantime, the doctors - a GP, a Gyeanec, Optho, Nuero, ENT and Dentist setup their respective consultation rooms. Each of these rooms were assigned numbers. The volunteers setup benches where the people were recieved, name, age, weight were entered in slip. The volunteers would ask the people what the primary complaint was and put the room number they had to go for consultation to.

For the very old a volunteer would lead them by hand to the room they had to meet the doctor at. Much commotion prevailed all through the day, as the weary people did not want to wait their turn. The problem was, they had assembled at 6am for the medical camp to start. Yet the volunteers tried to streamline the people/patients to some extent. This was extremely tiring but the exchanges were generally pleasant during the entire transaction.

Breaking up for lunch proved even more difficult as the patients all wanted to sure, they were examined before we left.
The wash up, the simple lunch at the caterer's house (who works on a contract basis with Honeywell), the simple hospitality, the amble back to the school made one feel very welcome in the community. Genuine respect for what the volunteer represented felt appropriate.

Time at the dispensary that was setup was very well thought out.. The recieving of the prescription, filling it out, the handing it out the correct patient, explaining the dosage, worked well, almost without hitches. The experience of setting up a mobile medical camp. the logistics involved, the coordination that takes place in the background to put together a camp of this size, which appeared effortless, was am sure an outcome of tireless work by many in Honeywell.