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Project White Smiles: David Johnstone Memorial Project

One of the aims of Idhayangal is to provide completely free full mouth dental care to children from orphanages. So, we linked up with Dr.Muthu Murugan, a dedicated dental surgeon from Chennai, who had a dental database of such deserving children needing immediate attention. Idhayangal managed to secure funding for Project White Smiles from the Rotary Club of Dundee and we profusely thank the Rotary Club and in particular Mr.Tim Heilbronn and Dr.Duncan. This was done in memory of Mr.David Johnstone who was a member of this club. The total cost of the project was Rs 50,000 ( £ 650 approx). Among the 29 children some of them needed multiple treatment procedures; they were brought to the center for more than one visit. The treatment was carried out in the premises of Pedo Planet, a dental centre run by Dr.Muthu. The total number of treatment procedures carried out is as follows:

1. Scaling (Oral Prophylaxis) – 17

2. Fluoride Application – 22

3. Extractions – 9

4. Fillings (Composite Restorations) – 30

5. Root canal treatment – 11

6. Stainless steel crowns – 12

7. Space Maintainers – 1

8. Radiographs – 18

This is a small start and we have assured further funding to promote such projects in the future.

Project New Hope: Noenatal ultrasound project, LTMG Hospital, Mumbai

Idhayangal received a proposal from Prof.Jayshree Mondkar from the neonatal unit at LTMG hospital, Mumbai for a neonatal ultrasound machine. This would enable them to carry out bed side imaging of various organ systems for establishing or confirming a diagnosis in critically ill or in small preterm babies. These neonates, otherwise had to wait for such investigations for a long time and had to be moved to radiology unit, which caters to around 1500 patients. Babies require cranial sonographies in cases of suspected intra cranial hemorrhages. This is particularly true for tiny babies on ventilator support.Cranial sonography is also needed for babies with perinatal asphyxia and those suffering from meningitis or problems like peri-ventricular leucomalacia and congenital or acquired hydrocephalus. Babies may require a scan of the abdomen for suspected kidney /hepatic problems.

On an average, 4-7 babies with congenital heart disease are admitted to the unit each month. Portable bedside echocardiography would be of great use in managing such patients. Thus on an average a minimum of 40-60 babies per month would benefit from having this equipment dedicated to the neonatal unit. Idhayangal made a concerted effort to raise funds for such a good cause. We thank all the contributors along with the Trusthouse Charitable foundation and the Prince’s Charities in London for their substantial donations to make this project a success. The ultrasound machine has been successfully installed and apart from benefiting 45 babies a month, is providing an excellent training opportunity for the post-graduates in this unit.

Project Mugaiyur: Physiotherapy equipment and computer centre for the physically challenged

Idhayangal received a proposal for funding of essential physiotherapy equipment for 40 children suffering from various degrees of cerebral palsy from a rural area in Tamilnadu. The parents of these unfortunate children are poor laborers who do not have the money or access to such equipments. ARMDS, a non profitable charitable society, headed by Mr.Susainathan, is doing a tremendous job in the upliftment of the poor people in that area and they were keen to help the mentally challenged children through this proposal. Idhayangal supplied the following equipments. Digimed interferential therapy unit, shortwave diathermy, Dual channel TENS unit, computerized muscle stimulator, wax bath therapy unit, shoulder wheel, overhead pulley, quadriceps table, tilting table and static cycle at a cost of £ 1600.00.

We also received a proposal for establishment of a computer centre for the physically challenged from the poor socioeconomic strata from the same group. This would make a big difference in terms of gainful employment for these people in a rural area. Idhayangal funded the purchase of 5 computers and a printer and this was successfully installed in a small ceremony. Idhayangal trustees are thankful to all contributors along with Mr.Sunderasan, local contact in India who is supervising the progress of this project.

Project Linvatec: Arthoscopy Project, KEM Hospital, Mumbai

King Edward VII Memorial (KEM) Hospital & Seth G. S. Medical College have been at the forefront of medical care and education since their inception in 1926, and remain the major referral center in western India for all specialties and superspecialties. Nestled in the heart of central Mumbai, this sprawling hospital with a bed strength of over 2000 accommodates almost 70,000 indoor patients annually, and treats another 2 million on an outpatient basis.The Department of Orthopaedics, KEM Hospital, has consistently been at the forefront of medical technology. However, being a free municipal hospital, there is a persistent deficit in the funds required to adequately treat an ever-increasing number of non-affording patients. The world of medicine is today moving towards minimally invasive surgery. Besides routinely performing knee and shoulder arthroscopy, KEM Hospital is the only institution in India that performs a large number of operative hip, ankle and elbow arthroscopy. These complex operations performed on joints using only puncture incisions enable short hospital stay, decrease patient and surgical morbidity, and ensure an early rehabilitation. Thus patients with the most complex of joint problems return to their activities much earlier than would normally be expected. This is most useful to poor patients as this may be the difference between gainful employment involving manual labour or physical debilitation leading to more socioeconomic problems. However, technologically advanced surgery of this kind is expensive and these modern orthopaedic procedures often involve high costs in terms of surgical equipment, instrumentation, implants and disposables. It remains a challenge  to continue offering free health services for poor patients while still maintaining the highest level of healthcare.

 The Arthroscopy Service at Department of Orthopaedics, KEM Hospital, was in urgent need of Arthropump for shoulder, hip, ankle and elbow arthroscopy. This instrument is used to maintain intraarticular pressure during the knee/shoulder arthroscopic surgical procedure and is an essential equipment for shoulder and hip arthroscopies. This equipment would benefit over 500 non-affording patients annually undergoing arthroscopic surgery in this department. A formal proposal for this equipment was put forward by Dr.Dinshaw Pardiwala, Orthopaedic surgeon from KEM Hospital, Mumbai. Idhayangal, after careful consideration, has funded the purchase of this equipment worth Rs 1.9 lakhs. This equipment has been installed and is benefiting 45 patients every month. One of Idhayangal Trustee recently visited Mumbai to get a first hand account of this project. Photographs and follow up reports will be available shortly.

Coordinator in India: Dr.Dinshaw Pardiwala, Orthopaedic Surgeon,KEM Hospital, Mumbai

Project Antireflux, PGI, Chandigarh

The Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) Chandigarh is a tertiary referral centre in North India. It was conceived in 1960 as a center of excellence which would endeavour to develop patterns of teaching in postgraduate medical education in as many branches as possible and attempt to produce specialists in several disciplines of medicine.Idhayangal had received a proposal from Dr.Narasimhan Kannan, from the Dept of Paediatric surgery, to fund the purchase of Oxybutynin, a drug that improves urinary bladder stability and prevents recurrent urinary tract infections and admissions. This drug is expensive for the parents of the affected children, all from very poor socioeconomic status. Idhayangal has funded the purchase of oxybutynin in two phases at a cost of £ 500 and this has greatly helped children in terms of admission rates and quality of life. There is a further proposal to expand this project to a group of 70 children identified by this team.

Project Looking AHEAD: Physiotherapy project, Kolkatta

Idhayangal trustees had received a proposal from Dr.Banerjee Choudhry from AHEAD organisation in Kolkatta. They requested funding for a  a part-time physiotherapist for twice a week (two hours per day) @ Rs.250 per hour. i.e. 4000 per month and a total cost for one year at  Rs.48,000. (£ 600). Further funding to the tune of Rs 22,000 was requetsed to buy essential physiotherapy equipment. Children benefited from this project include kids with cerebral palsy and those with multiple disabilities.

Idhayangal trustees, after careful consideration, have funded this project. This has led to the appointment of a part-time physiotherapist. This project has greatly improved coordination, muscle power and balance of these children.

 Project Lifeline: Neonates Project,  Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, Sion, Mumbai

       26 million babies are born in India each year. 1.9 million infants die each year of which 2/3rd are in neonatal period. The major causes of death in the newborn period are sepsis ,asphyxia and prematurity. Thus, the focus for health in India is on preventive and primary care coupled with intensive care services in an effort to reduce neonatal and infant mortality.

        Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College and General Hospital is a 1422 bedded hospital and tertiary care center. Being a public general hospital, it predominantly caters to patients from a poor socio- economic class. The neonatal unit of LTMG Hospital, Mumbai is tertiary referral center catering to about 8000- 9000 deliveries occurring in this hospital per year. The unit has 47 special care beds with approx. 3000 admissions per year. Being an apex institution, a large number of high-risk mothers are referred here and 40-50% of the babies delivered here are low birth weight.

       The Neonatal Unit At LTMGH. The Neonatal Unit at this institution thus looks after the 8000 – 9000 babies born in this hospital each year. The unit has 47 special care neonatal beds spaced in 4 areas:

• Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: This area has 9 high dependency beds which offer state of art care with facilities for ventilating 5 babies.

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• Transitional Care Unit: This 16 bedded area looks after babies who are stable and in the convalescent phase.

• Premature Unit: This 16 bedded unit looks after well and growing premature babies till they are fit for discharge.

• Nursery: This 6 bedded unit is meant for babies whose mothers have problems and need assistance to look after their babies.

On an average around 3000 – 3500 babies are admitted to the Neonatal Unit of this department every year.

Services Offered:
       The neonatal unit offers round the clock services to critically ill term and preterm babies born in the hospital as well as to those referred from other hospitals for specialized care. State of art equipment including neonatal warmers, 5 neonatal ventilators, monitoring devices like pulse oximeters, non –invasive blood pressure monitors, infusion pumps for precise delivery of intravenous fluids, double
surface photo therapy units for babies with pathological jaundice etc. are the services offered at this institution. Besides offering quality care to these tiny babies, the unit also serves to train undergraduate and post graduate students, nurses and observers from across the country in the art of neonatal care.

THE PRESENT NEED:
       The present felt need for the unit is to replace 4 non-functioning infant warmers with new ones and to replace the existing old weighing scales with 4 electronic weighing scales in the NICU, TCU Labour room, and in the preterm care unit. Equipments have been installed on 17th of August 2006. (Note of thanks from LTMG Hospital). For photographs of this project click here.

Co-ordinators in India: We are extremely grateful for Dr.C.S.Pramesh, Consultant Thoracic Oncologist based at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai and Dr.Nimit Shah, Cardiologist based at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.

Project Sunshine: Rakum blind school project, Bangalore

Rakum is a phenomenal young man who has given up, or rather chosen not to live the high life. He had set up the Rakum School for the Blind in Bangalore, which has set out a lot of goals to achieve in the future. Rakum says, “In the beginning I used to teach karate to handicapped children. It gave me immense pleasure watching them gain strength and control over their mucles and bodies. Then one day someone asked me why I didn't start a school for the underpriviledged. I considered doing just that, but I had no concept of what a school was or how one should be, other than teaching karate. Then came the issue of money. I had nothing to start a school with but some people sent in their contributions when they heard what I wanted to do. It's encouraging to see people take an active interest in social work and welfare. But I soon got tired of waiting for the required sum of money and decided to start on my own. In the first month, I had only three students, then it became seventeen, and today I have 175 students ranging from ages 3-24. The day the school opened was June 1st, 1998".

       70% of the students in this school are blind and they need special computers for themselves and a trained person to oversee their work. The remaining 30% are orphans. This school has no state, central, or local Government support. They are surviving entirely on the contributions made by the public and charity organisations. Idhayangal trustees had the opportunity to speak to Mr.Rakum, who expressed his request to fund a Braille printer, which would be extremely useful for the visually challenged children in this school. This Braille printer has the following specifications.  Facilitates production of multiple copies, Automatic page formatting for graphics and text. Facilitates easy operation by the blind as it has a Braille labeled front panel with speech feedback. Facilitates printing of school textbooks, exam papers and test sheets on demand in low volumes as and when needed.Eliminates dependence on Braille Presses. Embosses 42 characters per line, 84 characters per second and 340 pages per hour. 

We felt that this equipment will go a long way in helping visually challenged children in this school and have funded this project ( May 2006). The Braille printer has been installed and a simple function was held at the premises of Rakum blind school in Bangalore on 27th August 2006. 

Idhayangal trustees visited this school in March 2007. It is heartening to know that the first batch of students have passed their exams using the books printed from our printer. Two blind students are taking up their IAS Exams and it is a source of great pride to Idhayngal and its contributors for doing this project.

 For photographs of this project, click here.

Co-ordinators in India: We are extremely grateful for Wing Commander C.Subramaniam (Indian Airforce) and Mrs. Sarumathy Subramaniam based at Bangalore. (Note of thanks from Rakum Blind School).

Project L-Asper: Support to the Department of Haemato-oncology, Institute of Child Health, Chennai, India

The Institute of child health is a premier paediatric institution run by the government of Tamilnadu, the largest of its kind in Asia seeing  around 700,000 children as outpatients each year. The haematology department at ICH admits around 2500 children each year with a total in-patient stay of around 19000 days with a bed occupancy rate of 140% and an average stay for each child of 7 days. (source). The Tamilnadu government has recently announced in its budget of 2003 an allocation of Rs 270,000,000 (around £3,375,000) to modernise various departments within ICH with Japanese know how. The haematology department sees 200 new patients with Acute Leukemia each year. Inspite of the best efforts at funding there is a substantial shortfall particularly for the procurement of expensive chemotherapeutic drugs (L-asparaginase). There is a need for at least 900 vials per year with each vial costing around Rs 850 (Rs 765000) to facilitate induction of remission in these children. Please click here to read Dr Venkata Desikalu's (Head of Department, Paediatric Haematology) vision for the future of the department. The charity has so far raised Rs 150000 to fund the cost of this essential drug. The funds were donated directly to the department in a simple function in August 2004 by our trustees. The charity has pledged its continued support towards this cause.
Acute Leukemias in children have at least an 80% remission induction rate with 5 year event free survival approaching 80-90% in children in whom remission has been induced. We believe that helping change the lives of at least a few children will provide an immense sense of fulfillment and purpose.

To keep our promise of sustained funding for kids with Leukemia, Idhayangal trustees met with Dr.Venkata Desikalu in Feb 2006 and presented a further cheque for 700 GBP for buying essential medications. We are very pleased that our contributions have greatly helped children with Leukemia in 2006 as well. For a report of the outcome of our contribution, please click here for Dr.Venkata Desikalu's communication. 

       For more photos of our visit to ICH click here.
      For a report for this visit, please click here.

Co-ordinators in India: We are extremely grateful for Dr.K.Rajkumar and Dr.P.Natraj from Chennai.

  Project Regeneris: Tsunami Releif, Kokilamedu , Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu, India

       The charity was actively involved in raising funds to help rebuild the lives and livelihoods of the Fishing community in the badly hit South Eastern coastal areas of Tamilnadu. The worst affected areas were Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Kanyakumari and Tuticorin. One of the trustees (Dr R A Nambi) visited the villages along the coastal area between Mamallapuram and Kalpakkam to witness the relief work undertaken and to plan the Charity's relief effort in conjunction with that undertook by the Tamilnadu Govt and various public,private institutions and individuals. There was no limit to the generosity of the people in India and all over the world with funds pouring in from all quarters. The State and Central Governments have pledged more than Rs 500 Crores to rebuild the affected communities and villages .

 
The Charity had identified Kokilamedu; a small fishing village in the taluk of Kanjeepuram as a target for its financial support and Dr Nambi had visited the village a few times spending hours speaking to the village elders and the families. Kokilamedu was a thriving fishing community before the Tsunami hit and was utterly devastated in the wake of the tidal waves. The fishing infrastructure was lost to the seas and the overwhelming sentiment expressed by the families was the urgency to get back to their livelihood; this, they felt would be their most important step towards 'normalisation' of their lives.

Though the charity's funds were limited, the trustees had agreed to fund the purchase of fishing nets for the 124 families in the village. A local firm (Aswan Fishnet, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai) was contracted to supply the nylon nets and the necessary weighing pegs for a total cost of Rs 147,257 (£1794.57). The fishing nets were donated to the families in the village in a small function in front of the community hall by Cara and Nambi.

We convey our sincere thanks to the people who contributed to the Charity. Of note, was the untiring efforts of Cara and Nambi who had not only raised a significant amount towards the cause but also spent the time in Kokilamedu and Chennai to coordinate the Charity's efforts.

       For more photos taken during the visit click here.

Co-ordinators in India: We are extremely grateful for Dr.R.Nambi and Mrs.Cara Nambi from Chengalpattu and N.Ireland.

 Project New Vision: Low visual aids project, Government Eye Hospital, Chennai

       Government Eye Hospital in Chennai is a regional institute of ophthalmology. The majority of patients attending this hospital are from the socioeconomically backward sections of the society . These patients cannot cater even to basic treatment needs, let alone access to the relatively sophisticated but life changing low visual aid equipments. The Department was in the process of considering establishing a low visual aids clinic, which can dramatically alter the lives of poor patients with the following conditions: Diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, albinism, high myopia, macular holes, optic atrophy, coloboma, nystagmus. We were approached with a proposal to fund the purchase of the low vision diagnostic kit ( Visimax low vision aid set with accessories, Shah & Shah, ISO 9001:2000 accredited organisation) costing approximately Rs 50,000 ( 800 GBP). Idhayangal funded the purchase of this equipment ( July 2005), playing a vital role in the establishment of the low visual aids clinic in this hospital, the first of its kind. Dr. K.Swaminathan, one of the trustees, visited the hospital recently to get a first hand report. He was warmly received by Dr. V.Velayuthum, Director & Superintendent, Government Ophthalmic Hospital, Chennai along with his team. To view the photos during this visit, click here. Idhayangal has assured further help for diverse visual problems for poor patients including purchase of vision saving drugs.

      For more photos taken during our visit click here.

Co-ordinators in India: We are extremely grateful for Dr.V.Velayuthum from Chennai.

  Project First Steps: Paradise Home project

       Paradise Home is a rehabilitation centre for the mentally challenged children from poor socioeconomic background, based at Mutukkadu village near Kovalam in Tamilnadu state. This is run by a dedicated Mr.Gopal and his family. There are about 70 children in this home having diverse problems including Down’s syndrome, varying degrees of mental retardation & spasticity, other mental health disorders. We received a proposal ( Nov 2005) for purchase of essential physiotherapy equipment to the tune of Rs 1 lakh ( 1400 GBP) as the existing equipment were totally inadequate and in advanced state of wear & tear. One of the trustees visited this home to get a first hand feel of the home. We were pleasantly surprised by the dedication of Mr.Gopal & his family towards a noble cause and also by the extreme warmth and affection shown by the mentally challenged children. Idhayangal trustees agreed to fund the purchase of essential physiotherapy equipment for these unfortunate children, which would go a long way in improving spasticity and quality of life for these kids. The equipment funded include ultrasound unit, shortwave diathermy unit, interferential therapy unit, pocket TENS machine, Wax bath, waterbed, manual treadmill, static cycle for both arms and legs, forearm crutches, adjustable walker, tilting table and examination table. In addition, we have funded essential medicines for the poorest of children in this home and assured ongoing supply of these medicines in the foreseeable future. "Idhayangal" has kept up its promise of supplying essential medications to the poor mentally challenged kids in Paradise Home. We have supplied Rs.10,000 for above purposes. Updates from Mr.Gopal from Paradise home will follow shortly. For more photos taken during our visit click here.

Co-ordinators in India: We are extremely grateful for Dr.Rajasekar from Chennai.

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