News About Arpana

Arpana is starting a Nursing Assistants' program in January, 2010, where over 100 young adults (every year) from rural communities will be provided training at Arpana Hospital so that they can be gainfully employed with Arpana or elsewhere. This project will be funded by Pfizer Inc. U.S.A., and will run only as long as funds are made available. Therefore sustainability is not an issue

• The village support by Arpana Rural in Haryana is being expanded from existing 65 villages to 100 villages, starting from December, 2009. This is being supported by National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) Haryana. The Ministry of Health is also interested.
• Haryana Rural is also starting a project for rehabilitation of handicapped persons, from April 2010, consisting of 67 villages in two blocks of Karnal District in Haryana, with the support of Christoffel Blindenmission, Germany, who have in the past supported our eye work for more than two decades. They continue to provide ophthalmic equipment, Intraocular Lenses, and medicines for cataract operations conducted by our eye department.

We are starting a program on Mental Health for Family Therapy, to be housed at Arpana's Centre at Vasant Vihar, Delhi, supported by Pfizer, New York. The inauguration will be in December, 2009. The program will need support for 2 years and will aim to become self sufficient in terms of funds from year 3. It will consist of clinical work and training of therapists

Emergency Care Workshop at Arpana Hospital
Dr Davinder Kapur accompanied by Neelam Kapur (a physiotherapist) from Antrim, Northern Ireland, conducted an emergency care workshop at Arpana Hospital from 25th to 28th October, 2009, assisted by Mr Frank Armstrong and Mr Paul Meehan, paramedical trainers, working on a voluntary basis. The workshop was attended by Arpana medical staff as well as doctors and paramedics from Karnal and surrounding areas. Dr Kapur has been one of Arpana's most magnanimous and dedicated supporters for the past two decades.

Fund Raising Department
MCC (Murray Culshaw Consulting, Bangalore) were appointed as consultants with the support of Arpana Charitable Trust, U.K. They conducted a study of our requirements and presented an action plan. Based on that, a recruitment process is on to find a Departmental Head for Fund raising activities, as well as a communications and media executive. The Project is supported by Arpana Charitable Trust, UK. This Department will be based at the Arpana Centre, Vasant Vihar.

Fund Raising Department
Dr Raghu Gaind & Elizabeth Liddell of Arpana Charitable Trust, U.K. visited Arpana Services Projects from 4th to 12th November, 2009. They visited Molar Bund Resettlement Colony on arrival in Delhi, and proceeded to Madhuban on 6th November, to visit Arpana Hospital and rural services in Karnal District, Haryana. They saw projects in Himachal Pradesh on 9th & 10th, before returning to Delhi on 11th November. Pictures on left: Himachal Visit - with Bakrota Medical Centre staff & Handicraft trainees in new villages near Dalhousie Pictures on right: At Arpana Hospital, Madhuban - with ambulance donated by Guernsey & in Dr R.I.Singh's clinic

Haryana
Both Rural and Medical are doing well, with new projects starting in the next 3-5 months.

Rural Activities
Antenatal coverage, 55% overall in India, is 94% in Arpana's target villages. 97% of the children are immunised. 64 new self-help groups (SHGs) have been formed, primarily in 13 new villages taken up, for a total of 234 SHGs.

The recent focus has been on a fight against female foeticide, with street meetings, plays and group discussions in 54 villages. Nearly 2000 women held 56 rallies, making posters and coining slogans to stop this evil practice. 3,190 women pledged that they would not tolerate this evil in their homes.

A General Surgeon joined the hospital in February, 2009, and his patients are increasing rapidly. The ICU has been expanded from 4 to 6 beds. The Neonatal Nursery has been moved to refurbished expanded quarters, which now includes an isolation room for infectious cases.

Hospital Camps included 5 Laparascopy camps, a free chest & TB camp and 74 regular eye screening camps. Especially important in the past year were 15 emergency camps for the malaria epidemic, held in the 11 most affected villages. 1,065 patients were seen and slides for malaria were made and reported to government authorities.

Himachal Pradesh
Medical (Bakrota) got a tremendous boost with 4 free camps being conducted including the following :

• An Endoscopy Camp in May 2009 with 157 patients and 102 procedures performed, An Ear-Nose-Throat camp also in May, 2009, with 135 patients
• A Gynaecology & Broncoscopy camp in July, 2009, with 172 patients
• A second camp for ENT having 96 patients in August, 2009
• Gajnoi Centre had a major free Gynaecology & Surgical camp in July 2009, lasting for six days There were 341 patients and 30 operations performed in the Gynae camp, and 258 patients with 26 operations in the Surgical camp. Many poor patients who cannot afford treatment received relief.

There were over 7,000 patients at the outpatients' clinics of Arpana's Bakrota and Gajnoi Medical Centres in the past year. Two medical screening camps were held in remote villages. A free eye camp was held in Gajnoi Medical Centre in collaboration with the Civil Hospital in Chamba.

25 more villages were taken up for Arpana's programmes (20 of them near Bakrota), bringing the total to 150 villages in Himachal. Surveys were done and women selected for midwifery training. A dialogue was started with farmers. In the 125 villages previously taken up, there are now 80 women's and farmers' SHGs, availing of Government schemes for improved infrastructure like roads, irrigation tanks and school buildings, as well as employment opportunities.

Women are learning to operate under the local governance set up. They insisted that they also be allowed work, alongside the men, under the Government's rural work scheme, NAREGA, and even approached the District Commissioner. The village councils (panchayats) have now agreed to this option. 1,243 school children in 33 local government schools were taught about hygiene, sanitation and environmental issues in 260 sessions.

There were tuition, preschool and vocational classes for 1,810 children. In 2009 all the children passed into the next standard and 50% received marks in excess of 80%. Vocational training classes included computer skills, electrical maintenance, driving, preschool teaching, craft and tailoring.

At the Arpana Health Centre, besides the daily outpatient clinics, there were 24 volunteer doctors who held speciality clinics for Gynaecology & Obstetrics, Paediatrics, Ear-Nose-Throat, Gastroenterology, Pulmonary and Ophthalmology. Family planning protection for couples has risen from 47% in 2008 to 71% in 2009. 99% of the children in Gautampuri have been immunised.

There are 28 SHGs in Molar Bund with 333 members. As well as savings and loans, they are seeing that pregnant women obtain the necessary care and children are immunised. They are also dealing with the authorities to secure adequate sanitation and water supplies.