Sunday, August 24, 2014

CLP ICE WATER SPLASH CHALLENGE

You have either taken the ice water splash challenge or are here to quench your curiosity.

The ALS ice bucket challenge has definitely done a world of good for the research and funding for ALS patients...
After a lot of thought on how  to use this wave of ice bucket challenge to help our people in need we came up with a tweaked version to increase awareness on CLEFT LIP AND PALATE anomalies.
Since we have a lot of water shortage this task has been reduced to just  a glass of ice water to be splashed on your face.
Take the ice splash challenge and nominate people whom you know would love to come forward and help this cause.
Refreshed you smile and your donations will help a million smile with you.

 Cleft Lip & Palate is a birth defect that occurs approximately, 1 in every 700 live births in India. This translates to about 35,000 babies being born with this defect every year in this country. These defects can be corrected with surgery and other adjunct procedures and the child can lead a normal life like other children. However the whole treatment process is long drawn out, from birth sometimes up-to adulthood. This involves on an average 3-4 surgeries and other adjunctive treatment including speech therapy and orthodontics and needs multidisciplinary team of specialists to provide the care. More than 75% of these children belong to the lower socio-economic strata and the families cannot afford to provide the required treatment. . However, today we have a number of Non governmental organizations involved in the care of these children in our country and this has revolutionized,  both the quality and the quantity of care provided, which is more or less comprehensive.

                 We at the Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Hospital at Bangalore, are partners with one such NGO, the New-York based charity the Smile Train .We have carried out treatment, including surgery for more than 5000 patients, young and old alike, totally free of cost, by virtue of this partnership and are very grateful to Smile Train for this opportunity. At present Smile Train funds only the immediate preoperative and postoperative period i.e. the surgical intervention for cleft repair.  Smile Train also funds other interventions like speech therapy and orthodontics for these patients and also funds things like travel to and fro to the hospital as well spreading awareness regarding this project at our hospital

As already mentioned, a majority of these patients come from poor socio-economic backgrounds as well as from rural areas. Often there are other serious problems that crop up with these patients, and are influenced by the congenital defect. These include failure to thrive, because of the difficulty in feeding, recurrent chest infections and gastroenteritis and sometimes these can be life threatening. These patients often require admission to the ICU and care for a number of days. Treating these serious illnesses is a major problem because it costs significant sums of money and funding is not available for these activities and the parents themselves cannot afford it. 

Malnourished and failure to thrive
After  treatment for malnourishment
After Cleft lip Correction at 2 years

We are therefore looking out for funds to take care of this issue and we think this is where you can come to our aid. 

Your contributions will help us save these children and provide hope for the emotionally deterred parents.
We invite you to join us in our endeavor to gift these children an opportunity to live. We hope that these patients pass those early days of distressing illness with your support and make it to the surgery.
The contributions will be used entirely for the benefit of our patients. Our contribution expense details will be made available through this blog. We will eventually be able to build a website for the same in due course and improve the payment gateway. 

The contributions made will be eligible for tax exemption under 80G category.

Please email drdipesh.rao@gmail.com, dipeshdrao@gmail.com for bank details or payment options. 

Saturday, October 2, 2010

ANAND.. BUNDLE OF JOY!!


MY first Blog in an account created almost a yr and half back!! the reason for the delay was not my procrastination towards writing but the fact that i really didnt have a good topic to touch upon  ... but today i have one and it's titled ANAND!!!!
Anand in hindi means joy,happiness and this young kid in the photograph
means just that... a bundle of joy.. dimpled cheeks with a wider than normal smile; greets everyone with those cute little milk teeth flashing from different parts of his lip curtains....just started babbling and points at stuff that he needs... good day biscuits being his Favorite.. wonder whyy??
is it a sign to tell people that have a good day by feeding me one or just a coincidence...
Considering my area of interest and the field in which I am working, Cleft lip kids are a common finding...each one of them cuter than the other.. (the normal kidsss???? baaahhhh they simply cry n get over pampered as if he/she is the only kid on planet..).

Till the parents of these "unfortunate" kids (i fail to understand y somebody becomes unfortunate because he or she looks different) come to the center; they are deeply affected emotionally because  of the social comments n the feeling why my child?? then they r greeted by the others in the center who have a similar background.. things change dramatically as if they all belong to a single family... they have never seen their kids play in others arms like they have in ours!!
Now then!! why does this particular kid get to steal all the limelight to demand
the first post on an almost non-existent blog??
conventional case history taking might help us know him better -
C/o - child's guardian complaints of a defect in the kid's upper lip...

hold on!!! did i mention Guardian ???
next question? - where is the boy's father??

Guardian - "he Died"
Oh that's sad - Sorry!, the mother?
Guardian - "she committed suicide"

WTF why ???
Guardian - "she couldn't take the trauma of seeing her son born with this defect and also realized that she has an illness"
wait a sec?? Whats happening..... probing further ...details are.... the father died of AIDS, mother contracted HIV and the child??... well unfortunately he too has HIV (now this part is unfortunate)
the boy is an orphan and is now being taken care by a missionary called infant Jesus where somebody will be allotted to take care of the baby till he survives....but truly speaking the care and the love provided...exemplary.. we wouldn't provide half as much to our own kids...
So much is happening around our tiny globe, examples after examples..hints after hints by GOD telling us "hey jerk listen up stop cribbing and move on.. i have given you a much better life than billions living & struggling"
When i took this boy in my arms he cuddled and gave me a broad smile... my heart melted i didn't know how to say god bless u my child may u grow up to be a nice young lad...the sister of the ward ran up to me and told me sir what r u doing he is sero positive... ignorant like everyone despite the repeated telecasts of AIDS/HIV awareness videos "AIDS chune se nahi feltha... chunse sirf pyaar feltha hai".....
i never understood what  Shabana Azmi
exactly conveyed till this day.. the feeling was bliss.. i felt as if i cleansed myself from within. ..
i had to inform the OT staff that the baby is going to be posted the next day so please keep the +ve kit ready.. the head nurse replies sir don't u think there should be some form of mercy killing for such kids.. how long will he survive... orphaned, diseased and deformed.. whats his purpose??.... I replied sister "he will spread joy to all those who surround him till the very last day because his name is ANAND and he knows wat it means"...i challenged the sister to take him in her arms and feel the difference if she still feels that he's not worth living I'll stop coming for work... Here i am, still going to work ;-)
so many people come and go in our lives and with the current fast paced lives of ours we forget everything... but ANAND is someone I wanted to immortalize.. GOD might not have given him the time to live but god has definitely given him the charm to outshine everyone else and to etch his presence so deep in my heart that I made sure I write my first blog not because i want people to read an emotional story and feel touched but to know that whenever life takes a toll on us we got to remember the story of this kid ANAND who's name is just not a name...and be grateful to GOD who has chosen a much better life for us than so many others...
its a PITY that we just throw it around!! the ONE who does not have anything believes in giving and the one who has it all believes in hoarding!!!