The Logo

It really took a long time to come up with a logo that got a thumbs up from all the M.A.D members. While it’s still in the final stages of approval , an interesting question was raised. Should the logo have colors of the Indian national flag? The argument is that we as a group are determined to help humanity not just humans that belong to a particular race, caste, creed or for that matter a country.

The argument is very valid and very apt especially in this day and age, where the life of a human being is of no real significance. People get killed simply because they belong to a minority group ; people get away with hedious crimes because they are rich; people are forced to beg because they are born into poor families.

It has become a daily struggle for survival for billions of people around the globe. 

How do I help ? What can I do ? are the questions that come to my mind. The fact of the matter is that it is not enough if only I and you are willing to help. Each one of us should contribute in whatever way we can.

How can we bring so many people together, how can we unite so many people to fight for one cause, what would motivate the people to come forward and take up the responsibility.

Can humanity alone can make this happen ?

If it were, then the world would have been a much better place to live , not just to survive.

 What else can be big and can be the single most unifying factor; A COUNTRY’s PRIDE. The feeling of belonging to one nation. It is a relatively easier task to motivate and encourage people to do something for their motherland.

It is easier because, people can relate to the situations, the people and their struggle.

So the use of tri colors of Indian national flag is not a derogatory gesture , rather it’s a very powerful tool to evoke the sense of national pride and  their by bringing them together in fighting for a just cause.  The cause could be anything from helping a poor kid in Africa to helping a farmer in India, help knows no boundaries.

When we go M.A.D

I am alluding to the increasing number of medical cases we (M.A.D team) has taken up over the past few months. All our friends in hyderabad, bangalore went out of their way , contributing their time , effort and money to ensure that not only the patient gets the required treatment , but also gets enough emotional support to go through the difficult times.

It is this emotional aspect that is now becoming the bone of contention. So i decided to share my views on this.

Emotional support , is this good or bad. On a macroscopic level , it is very much justified , because its human nature, but when looked under the microscope, there are a few things that if done a bit differently can be of great benefit to the patient’s family than to our team.

1) Extent of financial support : In more than 95% of the cases we take up , the support should be

• operational costs;
• pre and post operational costs strictly limited to the patient; such as medicines , hospital accommodation etc.

2) Designate a M.A.D helper in the patient’s family :- This person will be responsible for carrying out all the activities such as

• getting medicines;
• talking to the doctors;
•  provide emotional support to the family and the patient;

3) Educate the M.A.D helper:- It will be our responsibility to educate the M.A.D helper so that he or she understands our expectations and make him better prepared to handle the situation.

All the above 3 points indicate that the responsibility should be shared equally by us and the family. It will be and it should be a collective team effort. By doing so , we are making the family more independent when it comes to supporting themselves once the operation is completed and the patient is discharged from the hospital. They will be better equipped to handle any crisis .

We are not doing anybody any favor, we are doing this, because it is our responsibility , if we do not do , then who else will ? It is important that we give the same message to the patient and his/her family.  This is our mission , to instigate the feeling of doing something for our society and our people.

How was your weekend ?

It was relaxing ; Spent time with the family ; Went for a movie ; would be some typical answers to this question. Our friends from M.A.D had no different answer, except that they did something more this time.

Distributed food to the homeless : Cooked and packaged 50 packets of lemon rice, 50 packets of curd rice and distributed to the people living on the streets. This is something we would like to continue doing every week. Obviously, we would like to increase the number of packets we distribute and the number of people we distribute to.

Distributed blankets: We have now distributed over 125 to 130 blankets to the homeless. Our friends went around the streets in the wee hours and handed over blankets to every individual who genuinely needs them.

Needless to say , the reaction we got was tremendous. A lady wanted to take pictures and said , ” I want to show this to our people in the village and tell them how good the people of hyderabad are “.

Obviosuly , this is not the solution to the problem of hunger and poverty ,but until we get to the root of it and find an amicable solution, this is an alternative. May be these experiences will teach us and show us the way.

The hearth that is the size of a walnut !

Imagine a surgery being done to a 3 month old baby’s heart which is the size of a walnut.

Sai Charan was born with a rare heart disease. In simple terms, impure blood is circulated to all parts of the body. His father, Ramesh , a driver in a college in Cuddapah ,( Kurnool district , Andhra Pradesh ) could not afford the surgery and hence approached eenadu newspaper to reach out to the indian community.

We ( M.A.D volunteers ) took notice of this news. Once we validated the claim in the newspaper, our volunteers did not waste any time. Sai Charan was brought to Narayana Hrudalaya hospital, Bangalore. The volunteers stayed in the hospital for almost 4 days, right from the day when the kid was admitted till he was succesfully operated upon.

We all were extremely happy that we could save the little kid and a big thanks to all our volunteers.

Now imagine this.

What if Ramesh ( Sai Charan’s father ) never went to the press ? What if M.A.D never reacted to the claim in the news paper ? What if we failed to raise the required money ?

There are thousands ( or even more ) out there whose own or a certain family members life is in danger and have no body to hear them. There are no hospitals they could go to, there are no doctors who would attend them , there are no medicines …. and why , because all those people who are suffering are poor.

This forces me to wonder why the governments spends crores of rupees every year on the so called “Government Hospitals”. I was under the assumption that these hospitals should be well equipped to handle any kind of ailment and at a subsidized cost or even for free. But that was just my assumption.

The hospital authorities need to be shaken up. They need to understand that they exist for a reason and that they need to justify their existence. How could we do this ? What could we do to help those thousands to receive timely medical help ?

As an individual or as a group , we could explore the option of using RTI to understand how these government hospitals function. This is bound to give us some definite answers.

Until then , anytime you read a claim for medical help in the newspaper, don’t just discard it as just another classic means to extract money . Try to enquire and try to help. If you cannot help directly , forward them to someone who could.

Note: M.A.D stands for Make A Difference. A group of dedicate individuals who believe every individual can make a difference.

Health is Wealth ……. is it , really ?

Health is Wealth is an old adage !  The new saying “No Wealth No Health ” . because only wealth can buy health .

Private health expenditure accounts for 80 per cent of the total health care costs. Since there is no concept of health care , especially for the poor, any such expenditure will have to come from his/her own pockets.And what is even worse is, their economic conditions force them to borrow loans on very high interest rates from private money lenders, pushing them deeper into the poverty.There are government hospitals that have been setup exclusively to offer free and good medical care for the poor. Everybody knows how the government hospitals treats its patients. To sum up the whole situation of the state run hospitals , people die not because of their disease or ill health, but by the way they are treated at the hospitals.

This is despite the fact that crores of money is given as subsidies to these hospitals by the government. Nilofer hospital in hyderabad, which is a government hospital is a children’s special hospital. There was an incident not too long ago where 17 kids died with in 16 hours due to sheer negligence, lack of facilities and more importantly lack of any accountability on part of the hospital authorities.

This is where RTI can be so useful. We need to wake up the authorities by asking questions which they never expected to be asked and their by make them accountable and responsible. We only want them to do what they are paid for and nothing less, nothing more.

I would like to ask the health ministry of Andhra Pradesh
1) How much money was allocated for health care in the year 2006?
2) Breakdown of where and how this money was spent ?
3) Is there anything called free health care for the poor ?
4) How much money was spent in improving the hospitals and its breakdown?
5) How much money was spent in producing, distribution of medicines and its breakdown ?
and any other possible information that could wake up this system .

So my question , how to use RTI ? more specifically
1) Whom to write to in the health ministry ?
2) What is the application process ?
3) Can this be filed online or does it have to be in person or via mail ?
any other useful information that will help me file this .

Medical cases and MAD’s policy

How many times have we come across people seeking help with medical expenditure through newspapers, televisions. The people who need help are anybody from small kids to old people. Being humans, we all tend to react to such claims and in other instances we also want to do something about it. Here is a set of questions one needs to ask before reacting to such claim .

Before we take up any medical case, we need to get meaningful answers for the following

• How did we come to know about this case? (Friends, new papers, ads, gossip etc)
• Is there a need to validate the case by site visits/calls etc?
• How eager are the recipients to receive the help?
• Are they taking help for granted?
• What is the kind of help they are expecting?
• Incase of monetary help, their ability to pay back in the form of interest free loan?
• What are the timelines? How quickly do they need help?
• Can we realistically take up the case? If not, is there any other group that can?
• How much can we help? If monetary help, then how much money can we raise?
• What are the timelines?
• Justification for us to take up the case
• Is there a group already doing such kind of works?
• Reach out to various groups/networks
• Is there a volunteer who can shoulder the responsibility of the case?
• If monetary help, raise funds through monthly contributions of MAD members, other groups, government help, contributions from non-MAD members who are interested only in sponsoring special kind of cases, fund raising events etc.

Every case must have a volunteer who can shoulder the responsibility of the case; a single point of contact for any updates etc. It would be his responsibility to coordinate the efforts and reach out to other willing volunteers for help.

• Update the group regularly about the case
• Incase of monetary help
• Volunteer should strictly abide by the monetary guidelines of the group
• Keep track of money spent and submit all related bills and receipts
• Should mail accounts against cash advances made at regular intervals.
• Document the progress of the project and put it on the website so that everyone can view it. This can be turned into a project report towards the completion of the case. The report should be in such a way that we should be able to refer to it at anytime in the future. ( must includes milestones, dates etc )