FIRST PERSON


A humbling dedication –


In Spring 2009 MDDUS medical adviser Mr Riaz Mohammedwrote of his visit to a hospital providing healthcare among a desperately poor population in North India. Here he recounts his recent return to the Duncan Hospital


T 12


HREE YEARS following my first visit to the Duncan Hospital, in Raxaul, North India – to experience “real medicine” in a very poor and


destitute part of the world – I decided it was the right time to return and see what progress has been made. On this trip I travelled with consultant surgeon Mr


Ian Hutchinson, an MDDUS member and friend who was also making a return visit. In addition we were accompanied by three of his colleagues, two consultant paediatricians from Airedale and a FY2 trainee who was of Indian origin and, importantly, spoke Hindi fluently. Te final member of the group was an engineer.


the return Following my previous excursion much has


happened. In particular an extremely generous charitable donation of over £500,000 had been giſted to the Duncan Hospital by another MDDUS member from Stirling. It really is amazing the generosity of the Scottish people – one of whom, of course, had started the hospital in 1930 in the first place. Tis money was used to complete the new Mother and Child Building at the hospital which had come to a complete halt due to a significant decrease in charitable donations from the wealthier west. Te global recession has more to answer for than just depressed high-street sales!


Small islands of change We flew to the New Delhi airport which was an extremely impressive modern building of considerable size – no doubt upgraded for the Commonwealth Games held in Delhi in 2010. However, the rest of the journey by train to Bihar soon brought things into proper perspective! Rural India was as deprived, poor and dirty as I remembered it. Nothing had changed. I could see no improvements in the lives lived by the poor in Bihar. It was like going back in time. Te recently completed new Duncan Hospital


building, however, was extremely modern and impressive – a definite improvement over the much- loved, but no longer fit-for-purpose, old building. Unfortunately in some ways, we soon began to


realise again what “real medicine” actually is. Te building was great, some of the equipment was modern and up to western standards but there was a major problem – namely lack of staff. For example, the paediatric/neonatal unit treated over 45 babies in any one day with two to three deaths, many of which could have been prevented had the child been brought to the hospital sooner. Tere was only one paediatrician in the hospital on duty 24/7, 365 days a year. Dedication or what?


SUMMONS


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