Enabling the purchase of machines for a hospital operating room in order to provide free medical treatment to locals and is alerting people to the dangers of poor hygiene

The St. Theresa hospital was able to purchase a cautery machine and a suction machine for the operating room in order to provide free medical treatment to people in Virar, with a population of 119,000, which is a far-flung suburb of Mumbai where 90% of inhabitants live below the poverty line, and even nominal medical fees are prohibitively expensive.

This hospital treats a community with high levels of illiteracy (78% literacy rate), and is ill-equipped to deal with even basic hygiene techniques, particularly those that would prevent water-borne diseases, many of which are fatal. This is significant as many of the people living in this community are fishermen, and therefore highly vulnerable to water-borne diseases.

The provision of much-needed technology means that these local fishermen, their families, and the wider community can receive treatment locally rather than having to travel many miles to private clinics, which they could not afford anyway.

The effect of these machines on the health of the local population has been significant, with the entire 119,000 inhabitants eligible to receive medical treatment previously inaccessible to them by virtue of cost and distance. Prevention campaigns in addition to the medical equipment have gone some way to alert Virar inhabitants to the link between hygiene and infection through water-borne bacteria. However, the scale of poverty and lack of amenities, such as clean drinking water, is such that taking adequate hygiene precautions on a daily basis is unfeasible for the vast majority.

Going forward, further efforts will concentrate on publicizing and promoting the dangers of not taking sufficient care of hygiene, as well as continuing to provide free treatment on demand.