Chapter 71-Rural Ramblings

Jan 1998

Note: RHC-Rural Health Centre
Below is a hand drawn sketch of what the layout of the RHC was in 1998. This may have changed a bit. 

Ramanthpuram is about 20 minutes away by bike (or van or ambulance) and is separated from Pondy town by a medium sized lake called Ousteri, expanses of barren red mud, and other greener expanses of well cultivated fields. These 20 minutes of driving, from a bustling coastal town to a quiet, peaceful, serene village, is something I have wanted to do many times over the last few years. However,  I have managed to visit this place all of twice, once on a Dept trip and once to scare the bejeezus out of Rahul who was posted here last year.

Our briefing over, the Dept has organized a Van to take us to the RHC, get organized and settled there and will return in the evening. We get back to the hostel to pack and get ready for 6 weeks of residential rural bliss. Of course, we will come back to campus off and on during the posting but it is strongly encouraged to be in residence as much as possible. It is supposed to be residential posting after all, but a few choose to live on campus and  make the commute to and fro the campus every day, a journey that in my mind defeats the purpose of the posting.
The route to Ramanthpuram is fairly standard and we get on our bikes and head off, following the PSM Van as it makes it's way past the many factories lining the main road, past and around Ousteri lake, taking a Right turn at the Pathukannu bridge towards Thondamanatham and then a final Left turn into Ramanathpuram and the RHC. It's quite remarkable how suddenly the scenery changes from the hustle of a coastal town with it's traffic and noise, transitioning through quieter roads with a few factories and their blue shirted workers heading to or from work on cycles, to just scattered collections of thatched huts, bales of straw, random animals and vast green fields that characterize the rural surroundings we find ourselves in 10 minutes into our carefree journey. There are no hoardings or horns here. Just a gentle breeze coming across Ousteri lake with a huge banyan tree just before the Pathakannu bridge, the junction itself hosting a typical tea shack with a few casual tea drinking village inhabitants whiling away yet another day. And as we reach the RHC, always a few curious onlookers waiting to see the fresh batch of excited, fairly incompetent Interns who will become their points of reference for all matters medical.

It is a normal, ordinary village-green fields, quiet back roads, starry skies. Semi naked kids running around, dogs chasing these kids, cows munching away in the middle of the road. It has a few thatched houses and a couple of cemented ones belonging to the village chief. There are a few scattered shops and one of the early priorities is to figure out which ones sell the booze and Gold Flakes (King Size). We are taken on a quick tour of the campus, a large squarish walled compound. There is the Main OPD Block which also has 2 or 3 beds for Emergencies. There are various rooms inside this Complex for dressings, injections and also a Delivery Room in the rare but extremely exciting scenario of a lady in Labour, usually brought on a bullock cart, who cannot make the journey to Jipmer in time. There are the usual Nurses and Social workers, many of whom have been here for a very long time and know some of the village inhabitants very well indeed.
We walk along a red brick path to our Quarters and look around. The Male and Female Dorms are housed in one asbestos roofed single storeyed building, guraded by a flimsy barbed wire fence and accessed through a creaky iron gate. 3 steps lead into a small common landing and we turn Right to our Dorm. Off to the left is the Dining room with a TV, a few chairs and a table, a fridge and an Aquaguard set-up. Leading on from here is the Female Dorm, which, of course, is out of bounds. Karunanidhi, the resident cook, and his protege, Ganesha, greet us and they promise to make anything we desire.
This place is truly our own. Once a week, we will take turns to go into town and shop for supplies-vegetables, groceries, booze, fish-anything that can be bought on our budget and stored in the fridge. After 4 and half years, we decide what we will eat and how we will eat it. When we will eat it. And with what we will wash it down.

The perks of passing Final Year don't end with working in a hospital.

On one side of the Dorm building is the CMO quarters, the haunt of many a haunting. The RHC has a reputation of ghost sightings and unexplained door bangings and things going bump in the night and even though the PSM Department, at the insistence of the village wise men, had organized a pooja of sorts, we are convinced that all is not solved. We actually look forward to some supernatural excitement.
There are large empty spaces in front which are hosts of impromptu cricket matches and a newly acquired net strung between 2 lamp posts signals the start of a wind affected badminton game. A tall water tank stands proudly off to one side and a few rooms for Karunanidhi and his protege, the ever smiling morning-tea-bringing Ganesha completes the campus.

The CMO (Chief Medical Officer) drops in once in a while to check on things. He will always be in-charge of the OPD sessions which is a good thing since I am sure, that we, swimming in a vast sea of newly acquired knowledge and eager to show off will end up misdiagnosing things like simple headaches for brain aneurysms or perhaps, and more importantly, missing one. Kids come here for vaccinations, village elders come to gossip, chronic headaches and body aches land up at 3 in the morning and on the odd occassion, when all is quiet and the mood is complacent and mellow, someone will land up with a badly lacerated head or hand or in shock or in Labour. The pattern is of mostly peaceful and quiet days and nights with unforseen excitement right around the corner. Jipmer is a phone call and a 20 minute Ambulance ride away, but one has to account for missing Telephone operators, unavailable Ambulances and the prospect of a life in your relatively untrained hands.

I am in Ramanthpuram. In my first few days of my last year in Jipmer.