On the road for 5 days now. We are on to our third clinic site, in Kishingarh. I wish I had nicer things to say about this one but...the overall feel of this placed is, depressed.
This region is characterized by marble processing. Rows and rows of marble plants line a congested highway. The raw marble slabs are bought in through the side, unloaded from trucks piled high, well beyond their retaining bars. Old men with skinny legs, gnarled arms and shriveled faces under filthy turbans keep the procession going, their backs permanently bent beneath their loads. The finished products, polished and rounded statues and garden sculptures advertise in the front, many of them cherub like renditions of Hindu gods. Their pale, cold finish invoked that of an anoxic infant.
The rickshaw ride in went from looping highways of green fields, earthy hills, pastoral goat-herding families, waving school children and hidden temples, to a busy four lane pipeline, a major artery in northern India's trucking route. There was a constant berage of horns, and bus after bus overloaded with factory workers, everyone hacking from the clouds of dirt. I saw a grotesque, new construction temple "tourist village" in progress, with the golden arches signifying the arrival of McWorld, looming in the background.
Roadside bars, each with a lone woman standing in the doorway, beckoning the truck drivers, caused me to recall an afternoon spent in a pristine US library. In this other world, I dutifully researched the documented spread of HIV along trucking routes, and how this phenomena has significantly impacted overall prevalence rates in India. This place, apparently, was what the industrial revolution, the bridge between third and first world, looked like.
The entire town is coated in white marble dust. You feel it in your throat, on your finger tips beneath everything that you touch. You see it coating the trees and flowers, making everything look, ghostly. Not surprisingly, everyone here coughs. We immediately realized that our number one complaint at clinic would be, "coughing, shortness of breath".
Our host for this site is the Marble Hospital Of Kishingarh. A modern, well stocked and maintained hospital built by the marble production moguls, provides intermittent public service to their workers, and fee for services, on a daily basis. Apparently, workers comp claims, like amputated limbs are covered. Respiratory issues are more ambiguous. How can we assume the problem has anything to do with the marble dust? The floors of this modern building are, as one might guess, lined with marble tiles. The many exam and treatment rooms, are empty. We stay in the dormitories, keeping the windows closed to limit the layers of white that settle on our cracked lips and clothes, and set up our free clinic in the hospital courtyard, under tents.
It must be said that our hosts are incredibly kind, welcoming, and have looked after us very well. I had to take a patient inside the hospital to do a proper exam, a young woman with a large cyst/mass that almost occluded the opening of her vagina. I found one of the empty rooms to preform the exam, and then went looking for help to provide the care that this patient needed. In my pursuit, I was introduced (and invited to tea) with the chief of surgery, was introduced to one of the hospital board members, and finally arrived at the quiet office of a female gynecologist. She welcomed me in to sit at her polished wood desk, and offered a silk pillow cushion for my back. We chatted and exchanged professional introductions and courtesies. I motioned to the woman standing next to us, who needed GYN care. I explained that my feeble assessment was that there was no perineal abscess, but perhaps a glandular cysts that had grown quite large. This physician blinked her pretty eyes behind glasses and assured me in a soft voice with a lovely British accent that she would see to it at once. She promised that there would be no charge to the patient, and that I should "rest assured". I thanked her and left them, feeling cautiously pleased, but also like I was operating in the Willy Wonka world of hospitals. Everything is fine, everything is lovely...
Anyway, today we head out to work in an adjacent slum area, where the families and children of the marble factory workers no doubt live. Its been fine here and I appreciate the hospitality, but in truth I'll shed no tears when its time to leave the marble city.
This region is characterized by marble processing. Rows and rows of marble plants line a congested highway. The raw marble slabs are bought in through the side, unloaded from trucks piled high, well beyond their retaining bars. Old men with skinny legs, gnarled arms and shriveled faces under filthy turbans keep the procession going, their backs permanently bent beneath their loads. The finished products, polished and rounded statues and garden sculptures advertise in the front, many of them cherub like renditions of Hindu gods. Their pale, cold finish invoked that of an anoxic infant.
The rickshaw ride in went from looping highways of green fields, earthy hills, pastoral goat-herding families, waving school children and hidden temples, to a busy four lane pipeline, a major artery in northern India's trucking route. There was a constant berage of horns, and bus after bus overloaded with factory workers, everyone hacking from the clouds of dirt. I saw a grotesque, new construction temple "tourist village" in progress, with the golden arches signifying the arrival of McWorld, looming in the background.
Roadside bars, each with a lone woman standing in the doorway, beckoning the truck drivers, caused me to recall an afternoon spent in a pristine US library. In this other world, I dutifully researched the documented spread of HIV along trucking routes, and how this phenomena has significantly impacted overall prevalence rates in India. This place, apparently, was what the industrial revolution, the bridge between third and first world, looked like.
The entire town is coated in white marble dust. You feel it in your throat, on your finger tips beneath everything that you touch. You see it coating the trees and flowers, making everything look, ghostly. Not surprisingly, everyone here coughs. We immediately realized that our number one complaint at clinic would be, "coughing, shortness of breath".
Our host for this site is the Marble Hospital Of Kishingarh. A modern, well stocked and maintained hospital built by the marble production moguls, provides intermittent public service to their workers, and fee for services, on a daily basis. Apparently, workers comp claims, like amputated limbs are covered. Respiratory issues are more ambiguous. How can we assume the problem has anything to do with the marble dust? The floors of this modern building are, as one might guess, lined with marble tiles. The many exam and treatment rooms, are empty. We stay in the dormitories, keeping the windows closed to limit the layers of white that settle on our cracked lips and clothes, and set up our free clinic in the hospital courtyard, under tents.
It must be said that our hosts are incredibly kind, welcoming, and have looked after us very well. I had to take a patient inside the hospital to do a proper exam, a young woman with a large cyst/mass that almost occluded the opening of her vagina. I found one of the empty rooms to preform the exam, and then went looking for help to provide the care that this patient needed. In my pursuit, I was introduced (and invited to tea) with the chief of surgery, was introduced to one of the hospital board members, and finally arrived at the quiet office of a female gynecologist. She welcomed me in to sit at her polished wood desk, and offered a silk pillow cushion for my back. We chatted and exchanged professional introductions and courtesies. I motioned to the woman standing next to us, who needed GYN care. I explained that my feeble assessment was that there was no perineal abscess, but perhaps a glandular cysts that had grown quite large. This physician blinked her pretty eyes behind glasses and assured me in a soft voice with a lovely British accent that she would see to it at once. She promised that there would be no charge to the patient, and that I should "rest assured". I thanked her and left them, feeling cautiously pleased, but also like I was operating in the Willy Wonka world of hospitals. Everything is fine, everything is lovely...
Anyway, today we head out to work in an adjacent slum area, where the families and children of the marble factory workers no doubt live. Its been fine here and I appreciate the hospitality, but in truth I'll shed no tears when its time to leave the marble city.
The nice thing about doing medical care is that you don't have to worry about the reasons marble dust coats the city or why examining rooms are empty. The focus is the patient, the problem, the treatment. I hope that the woman with pretty eyes comes through.
ReplyDeleteAnd I hope that you don't end up filled with fury and cynicism in Willy Wonka land.
AC