By Anil Gulati, Shivpuri, May 18 : Premwati, a 12 year old girl, feels elated and smiles when asked about her sister whom she carried in her lap. She had helped her younger sibling Anushka recover from severe malnutrition. Premwati lives in Bamera Panchayat of Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh.
Her sister Anushka was a year old when she was unwell and was suffering with severe acute malnutrition. NGO ASHA worker Ramswarupi Lodhi, during her rounds in May 2009 to their house, found the kid to be underweight and was in stage of severe acute malnutrition.
ASHA worker advised her parents that the child should be referred to the nearest Nutritional Rehabilitation centre for treatment and care. She briefed her parents, who are agricultural labourers, and urged them to take the little one for treatment.
Though her parents wanted to treat her, but they were worried about their other 5 children.
They were dependent on their daily earnings for bread. They could not afford to stay with the child at NRC for 14 days leaving their work.
It was then her sister Premwati took it upon herself and expressed her eagerness to stay with the little one at NRC and look after her.
Though she had to take time out of her school, a place where she loves to go, but in her own words, it was worth for her little sister. She stayed with her younger sibling was at NRC in Shivpuri district for 14 days.
Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre is centre for treatment and care of severe acute malnourished children. Madhya Pradesh has 202 such centres including this one at Shivpuri.
They are being run under National Rural Health Mission with support from State Government. Staff at NRC and ASHA worker fondly remembers how punctual Prenwati was with her sister meals, medicine.
She was loved by all NRC staff during her stay. After her stay at NRC, district team did follow the child at her home. Whenever team used to come to follow up, Premwati used to make sure that they see her sister.
Premwati studies in school now and not only vows to study further but wants to make sure that her sister too goes to schoolwhen she grows up.
Recently UNICEF team from UNICEF office for Madhya Pradesh visited her at her village; she smiled with her sister in her lap while people of her village proudly talked about her to the visiting team.
1 comment:
Oh' so sad to know that, I wish they can recover from malnutrition. They were too young to suffer from that kind of sickness.
pediatric emr
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