David Fenne Arthur Hosier / Meyer Sassoon Award Report on India 2010 - Visiting the Rhema Partnership During the summer vacation of 2010 I travelled to South India to partake in voluntary work at the Rhema Partnership in Tamil Nadu. This trip would not have been possible without the generous provision of money supplied by the Arthur Hosier/Meyer Sassoon travel grant. My trip began on the 19 th of July as I set off from Heathrow to Cochin in Kerala via Mumbai. Having arrived there I then took public transport to cross the beautiful state of Kerala into the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, characterised by its rolling hills and fertile valleys. Once this extensive and rather bumpy journey was over I arrived in Theni district (Tamil Nadu) in the town of Cumbum, where I was to remain for the forthcoming three weeks. I was to be staying within accommodation provided by the Rhema Revival Evangelical University and volunteering by day within their recently built Primary Healthcare centre. This picture shows one of the University s accommodation/teaching facilities, within which I was accommodated. The roof remains unfinished; indicative of the Indian mentality of leaving building projects unfinished should sufficient funds arise to enable extension.
The Rhema Partnership is a UK-funded charity that has a number of missions within Tamil Nadu. These include: a system whereby UK sponsors can fund orphans, a school for children with mental health problems, a Primary Health care centre and principally a bible college for Indian s seeking to enter Christian ministry work. The charity has a UK board that oversee the running of fund raising events and organise the logistics of transferring sponsorship money to India. Based in Cumbum is Bishop Dr.S.Gnanaparhasam, who along with a number of faculty members organises how best to use sponsorship money to further develop the charitable activities they are involved in. Whilst I was there, I found time to get involved with all aspects of the charity, particularly the medical centre. My initial desire to visit Rhema had arisen due to a conversation with Rev Richard Lloyd, the charity s Chairman, who had indicated that a visit to the project would provide me with a great insight into Primary Healthcare within India. This experience I hoped would serve me as invaluable overseas medical experience prior to applying for Medical school in the UK upon returning. As I left the UK I had no real idea of what rural Doctors, such as those at Rhema, dealt with on a daily basis.
On the previous page can be seen a number of images; the top-left picture is of the Medical centre, the top-right is of Dr.John (who is 78 years old, despite his youthful looks!) and in the bottom image I can be seen along with Dr.John and two of the nursing sisters. The Medical centre serves local residents of Cumbum, but also people from neighbouring villages. Government healthcare within India is expensive and being charitably funded, the Medical centre provides healthcare that is subsidised fifty percent, so the centre is fairly popular with the relatively poor local agricultural folk. People come to visit the Doctors at the Medical centre with a variety of ailments; ranging from stomach upsets to bad snake bites capable of killing. Being there in July, the South of India was experiencing their monsoon period. Despite the rather tropical looking images I ve displayed in this report, heavy rain was experienced daily, particularly in the evenings. The fact that it was the monsoon season had direct ramifications upon the number of patients the Doctors saw and the types of ailments people would come to the Medical centre with. During this period of the year many of the rural folk are taking things a little easier (if that s possible! They always seem to be busy). So usual tasks they would be performing would include; planting new rice plants within their paddy fields and managing their banana plantations. A view out over a rice paddy field neighbouring the Rhema University campus.
Most of the patients coming to visit the Doctors at the Medical centre were experiencing fever. I came to realise that fever was being used to describe a whole range of complaints. Of particular interest were a number of people with malarial infections. My undergraduate research project was to be upon a component of immune system priming to malaria infection, so getting to witness people suffering from malaria served as a real tangible source of motivation prior to commencing my final year of study at the University of Reading. Provisions in the Medical centre were fairly antiquated by UK standards, which wasn t surprising, but pharmaceutical supplies were particularly reasonable, with many drugs I knew to be available within the UK being seen within their store. The Medical centre consists of two fifteen bed wards, within which patients can be split according to sex. Whilst I was there, a number of patients were kept in for a night of two, surprisingly these were patients who weren t particularly ill, but rather if they had been discharged and sent home they was every possibility they may have died. So in these cases it was paramount to keep them on the ward, where they could be hydrated and monitored. This was an area I was able to get involved in, taking blood pressure readings and listening to their breathing, etc. This experience was brilliant, much more than I could ever acquire within the UK. As previously mentioned the town of Cumbum and its surrounding agricultural land is home to many snakes. With India being a country that has such a high population of people and snakes, it is inevitable that their paths will meet far too frequently. The rice paddy fields and coconut and banana plantations are ideal man-managed environments within which snakes reside. This leads to many people being bitten by snakes; annually alone there are approximately one million snake bites in the whole of India, resulting in around fifty-thousand fatalities. Whilst I was at Rhema I saw a number of snakes, but thankfully only few bite
victims. The principle problem in rural India is convincing the local folk that following a snake bite it is essential to seek proper medical advice, rather than visiting the local village quack. As the image below shows, two local vipers found the opportunity to meet an English man far too anesthetising allowing me the chance to have my photograph taken with them. Two good friends of mine were also in India at the same time, so after having spent three weeks at the Rhema Partnership I moved on to find them in Kerala. The remaining time spent in India served to further expose me to the diverse and fascinating culture of the country. I hope to return next summer to visit Rhema and see how the charitable missions have developed. The lessons learnt and the experiences gained as a result of this trip will remain with me forever and I am truly grateful for the provision of financial aid enabling this trip to occur during summer 2010. D.Fenne