HEALTH PROGRAM IN HADAPSAR

As part of the Health Program implemented by Asha-Kiran, performing general health checkups on the children who will attend new Day Care Centers (DCCs) are a regular procedure. The new DCC at Hadapsar was no exception.

Before actually inaugurating the DCC, we had already done a medical screening in the slum, and detected a high percentage of malnutrition and anemia among its children, aside from serious skin problems caused by their habit of playing and bathing in the highly contaminated canals that crisscross their villages. We also found out that the children had never been vaccinated against common diseases. In view of this, we set to work right away. Before the end of October, all the children had individual health records, which will allow us to do a personalized follow-up of every child. The most troublesome part of the activity was giving the tetanus vaccine, since slum children are not used to getting vaccines and they were scared of being given a shot.

Fortunately, the children’s parents, the medical team, and the teachers and social workers from Asha-Kiran patiently explained the importance of the vaccine and managed to persuade to be inoculated. Tetanus is a fairly common disease in the slums of Pune because children often play barefoot in areas full of sharp metal objects which can easily cause wounds. By the end of the day, 32 children had been screened and vaccinated. And this is just the beginning…