Report of Oct 2nd Hospital Cleaning by Bhumi

I spend some of my spare time for an online group called 'To Make A Difference'. This group is predominantly led by members in Hyderabad and Bangalore. In both these places, the members double up as volunteers for various social causes.

One such social cause where the members participated was on Oct 2nd in cleaning up of Osmania General Hospital in Hyderabad. This event was created by a group called BHUMI. I have posted here the report of one of the volunteers, followed by pictures of the hospital cleaning and a followup candle vigil.

I am posting this to bring to your notice the current state of hospital's in India and leave you thinking about what you can do to alleviate this situation.

Following is the report from Ravishankar of TMAD group.

"It was about 12'O clock by the time we all assembled. Though few of us came early we waited for all so as to have fun while working together. There was some more delay because of equipement (Brooms, phenoil etc..). Actually, the superintendent there is supposed to help us regarding that but it was not encouraging.

We went directly to MO ward 2 and directly asked the head nurse to help us arranging them. Her attitude really irritated but still we had little fun with some witty answers to her. She responded like ' r u really going to clean?? r just came to show off'.. for that we responded with complete coolness like ' u speak after the program'.

It was a huge ward and we dragged all the cots and cleaned entire floor and walls row by row. We were joined by engineering college students (I don't remember all names, but it was complete fun along with them). we worked in a competetive spirit to get a chance to take the broom. Lakshmi never transfered the broom to any one excepet when she find lizard etc.. (Balli.. kalijeru.. ).. There are few perfectionists among us who doesn't move from a place unless that mark on walls vanishes.. Really they put their muscles to a great pressure. We thought we should have taken a photograph 'before' and 'After' some thing like obesity treatment centers. We completely couldn't remove the marks as those have been used for years to spit pan (Aakulu tini godala meeda use vaaru). One encouraging thing was that one patient scolded the other old lady for spitting on walls as we are giving too much of efforts to clean them. We were completely lost in time that we realized at about 4'O clock that we din't have lunch today.

After that ward we split the team and me, pradeep and few other engg. students moved to post operation ward. It was heart rending to see somany injured patients with bandages at once. Here the problem was that we are not supposed to move the beds. Even then without compromising, we cleaned the floor as we cleaned the other ward. Initially when we were given aprons and face masks i thought that organizers were over careful but later realized that those are compulsory. Infact, one doctor warned us that it is highly infectious area.

We had taken the help of Ravi, who is a contract employee there to remove the water after cleaning. His skill was of great help, in fact. He was a contract employee there and he need not to work with us. but still he helped us. No hospital employee worked with us except the nurse who was a disturbance rather than being helpful .

All in all, it is a wonderful experience. All our efforts will be fruitful only when they are maintained like that and only if authorities realizes the importance of hygeine and show some concern in that regard."

Also, please view pictures from the event