6 Sep 2008, Bowanipur, Bihar

After lunch the medical team set out for the first medical camp to be held at a place called Bowanipur. Though, only at a distance of 40 kms,   it took about 75mins to reach there, as the road was not always good. In many places the roads have been washed away and in some places the river is flowing across the road with a strong current. In one place the bridge had become so weak that it had tilted to one side and whenever any vehicle crossed it, they had all the passengers get down from the vehicle before it crossed the bridge.

We started the first camp in a school where the flood disaster victims had been accommodated temporarily. There were two more such schools nearby whose flood victim residents also took advantage of the medical camp. The patients were mostly women and children who looked very much impoverished. Most of the cases were general heatlh problems like cough, cold, fever, diarrhea, etc. The camp went on for about 2.5 hrs during which time the doctors treated around 225 patients. Incidentally ours was the first medical camp to have functioned in this place after the camp had been setup more than a week ago.

Looking at the plight of these people, I feel that lots and lots work need to be done here to uplift these people to a comfortable living, free of poverty and illiteracy.

While the camp was on, we also went and identified the site for putting up our temporary shelters to accommodate the flood affected for at least the next three to six months.

As many may be aware around 4 million people have been displaced and uprooted from their homes and hearts and even though rescue efforts are on with more than a 1000 teams participating in the effort, even now more than 3.5 lakh people are yet to be rescued, as per the local sources. They say that when the water finally recedes they could be looking at a casualty figure of upto one lakh people.

– Sadasiva Chaitanya