Nineteen-year-old Kapil Shakya and Monika Vishwakarma, 20, get excited as they describe their work. The youngsters—Shakya, a class 12 student, and Vishwakarma, a BA student—are more commonly looked upon as 'mini doctors' in their largely impoverished localities situated close to the abandoned Union Carbide factory.
“I can easily identify symptoms of basic health issues and do basic diagnostics like blood pressure check. I can dispense herbs and medicinal plants grown in our community gardens to the people depending upon their symptoms. If there is anything serious, I ask them to approach the Sambhavna clinic. I also check stagnant water for larvae growth and put burnt oil or gambusia fish in them as required (for malaria/dengue larvae control),” says Shakya, a resident of Shri Ram Nagar. He has been doing this work since he was 12 years old.
Vishwakarma, who resides in nearby Preet Nagar, is more trained. She can prepare blood slides for malaria/dengue detection, give basic counseling to women on their basic reproductive health issues and even dispense basic medicines like paracetamol from the mini clinic in the locality, apart from the herbs in community gardens. “It makes me happy when people feel better after talking to me or taking help from me. I have been doing this from 8 years and want to continue doing it as long as I can,” she says.
Shakya and Vishwakarma are among the 100-odd community health volunteers (CHVs) belonging to families affected by the Bhopal gas tragedy or water contaminated due to presence of toxic waste in and around the abandoned Union Carbide factory premises. They help the community health workers of the Sambhavna Trust Clinic, operational since 1996, in maintaining health of the affected community.
Shakya and Vishwakarma were not even born when the Union Carbide spewed poisonous gas 35 years ago on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984. However, the tragedy continues to affect their lives daily as their parents are among the affected people and so are majority of the people in their neighbourhood.
It is the recurring pain and sufferings of these people that are driving youngsters and even elders from the affected families to play a part in healing of the community that has been largely neglected by the government system. “Kapil helps me whenever I have aches in my body. He gives me herbs or even medicines for fever. I can always depend on him for any small health problems,” vouches Gayatri Bai, a resident of Shri Ram Nagar.
There are many such voices around as the community health workers from the Sambhavna Clinic, with the help of these volunteers, take care of the basic health needs of the survivors at the local level itself through mini clinics and house-to-house visits. At the same time, serious cases are treated at the main clinic of the trust. The use of alternative health care implements such as locally-grown herbal medicines and yoga supplement the normal treatment protocols.
“The communities play an unprecedented role in the survival of the most impoverished of survivors of the Union Carbide disaster. It is a good example to show how the community can heal itself even through small interventions. It is unfortunate that the possibility of harnessing this communal culture towards improving the health of the community has never found a place in the hospital-based, drug-centric government health care system,” Satinath Sarangi, founder trustee of Sambhavna Trust, told THE WEEK.
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Currently, Sambhavna’s community health workers render their services to a population of over 40,000. It is run by seven community health workers who are fully dependent on the work of about 100 CHVs, Sarangi shares. Thousands have been benefited over the years. The community health workers identify, carefully train and nurture the volunteers who then go on to become almost self-dependent in helping and healing the community.
In all, 70 per cent of the CHVs are females. About 57 per cent are between the age of 16 and 30 years, with a significant proportion—18 per cent—being 15 years or younger. About 38 per cent of CHVs are housewives and 43 per cent are students. Thirteen per cent of the CHVs are daily wage workers and 6 per cent are self-employed. Around 42% have been volunteers for five years or more, Sarangi says.
