Fighting with ill system for wellfare of tribal

A}Public Interest Litigation –

           

MAHAN, KHOJ & some more NGO, together started a innovative ‘Counselor’ program. In India this may be the first innovative program of monitoring of government hospitals by voluntary organisations. This yielded very good results in terms of improving hospitalisation of patients, attendance of doctors & other staff, hygiene,availability of medicines, instruments functioning, etc. However it hurts vested interest of ill elements of system. Govt. stopped  this program. We filed a Public Interest Litigation, ‘PIL’, in Mumbai  High court.  Honorable chief justice JN Patel, Honorable  Chief Justice Mohit Shah and honorable  justice D.Y. Chandrachud ordered govt. health department to restart this program and also advised govt. of Maharashtra to replicate the model all over Maharashtra.

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B}Truth can be troubled but cannot be defeated –

            As we were exposing non performances, malpractices etc. in govt. health & ICDS system of Melghat, we were always made  target by ill elements insystem. Once  a  person lodged a false atrocity case agianst me and Kavita. Police tried to pressurise us for settlement saying otherwise we will be arrested. At that time Athang’swas appearing for exam. In next few days, I was supposed to go to Germany & Netherland for presenting papers in international medical conferences. But we were firm on our stand of not bowing infront of such wrong allegations and bear whatever will be the consequence. At last it was proved to be false case & we could escape the arrest.

We realised Mahatma Gandhiji’s sentence “Truth can be troubled but cannot be defeated.”

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C} Set Back-

            There is a village named ‘Kharya tembhru’.In that village one child died due to negligence of a government nurse. After investingatign we got to know the truth. We also came to know that due to her, health condition in that village detoriated to great extent. But due to fear, she and some ill elements of the villages defamed us and stopped our work in the village and even tried to arrest our team. Later on we filed a PIL in Mumbai high court.

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D}Story of community awakening :

            ‘Kokmar’ is the most remote & interior village of Melghat. Due to our efforts the facts about malnutrition & mortality rate in this villages was surfaced out. This exposed the grass root govt. workers. These people presurrised our Kokmar village health worker (VHW) to stop work. It was a great blow to our efforts.Myself along with Friend Aalhad kashikar & few of our staff, went to Kokmar. It was rainy season & we had to cross the dense forest and river to reach to Kokmar. People who got hurt, had told villagers that MAHAN team was defaming village by publishing name of the severely malnourished babies. So the villagers were reluctant to speak with us.

After 30 minutes, we saw a boy walking with a roti in hand. This was the same boy whowas severely malnourished 3 months back,was bed ridden, not getting proper nutrition from anganwadi. Howevere after we surfaced out his condition, he started getting benefit of special diet and health care from govt. As a result he could walk.

We explained it to the villagers. They  were  convinced with the example and started supporting like anything to us since then.

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