Members of Naga Blog & NOOBS gift facelift to Dimapur hospital’s birth section
Dimapur, April 14 (MExN): Saturday was yet again another busy day for the members of The Naga Blog, and Nagaland Open Online Barter and Sale (NOOBS) two groups on social networking website Facebook, as they took a big piece out of their hearts as a gift to the babies in Dimapur’s Civil Hospital. This time around the groups were undertaking a campaign they named ‘Let’s Make a Difference for the Little Ones’, aimed at redoing the interiors of one of the most critical health sections of any medical apparatus, the pre-natal section of the civil hospital.
Youths, students and young professionals comprise the more-than-ten thousand members of The Naga Blog and NOOBS. The two groups have successfully undertaken social work earlier as well such as the fund drive for people affected by the earthquake in Sikkim during September 2011, fund and aid for victims of the fire in Burma Camp in Dimapur during November 2011 and recently, relief for villagers in Mon affected by a fire that razed the village.
The social work ‘Let’s Make a Difference for the Little Ones’ came to birth about a month ago when photographs of filthy, clogged toilets and the peeling, dirty, grimy rooms of Dimapur Civil Hospital’s “health” sections – particularly the sections associated with child-delivery and baby care sections – appeared on Facebook.
The day’s work started at around 9:00 in the morning and lasted all the way till 7:45 in the evening. About a hundred The Naga Blog and NOOBS members led by their administrators engaged in various renovation activities. Interestingly, some members even came all the way from Mokokchung and Kohima just for the social work while some Naga organizations even brought in their own volunteers to help in the work.
From the funds raised – contributions of members and well-wishers from Nagaland and outside – the youths cleaned the entire pre-natal section and painted the entire interiors. Apparently left unclean for an extremely long time, the blackened and clogged toilet and washroom areas of the pre-natal section had been “cleaned’ to some extent after the photos appeared on the internet. However, more “work” on the filthy toilets were required. On Saturday, the eager youths put in long hours scrubbing and thoroughly cleaning them with chemicals. Later, the toilet sections were also painted.
Further, as part of the work, the already-broken, rusted or decaying windows were gouged out and new window panes were installed in place by wielders. The new window rigs were then draped with new, clean curtains and ring holders. Young professionals of the group brought in their expertise and equipments such as molders and welding equipment while those in the electrical business brought in their bit to weld new metal windows and nets or install new fans. A number of new fans and fluorescent electrical bulbs were put into place in the pre-natal and post-natal sections. Dozens of new waste bins, both wooden and plastic, were also placed in the sections and outside.
The central waiting shed of the hospital was also given a facelift with new paint coats while more waste bins took their place in and around the waiting areas. Later, the members mobbed and scrubbed the pre-natal section clean before calling it a day.
From the look of things, the hospital needs more than a day’s-work.
The presence of negligence and dilapidation is apparent in almost everything there is in a department as critical as the pre-natal and post-natal section. Even by the first look, any person can see that the windows have not been repaired or replaced for a very long time as much as the walls have never seen paint. The metal beds, equipment tables and pullers, hangers and drawers, dividers and water taps etc are all rusted and almost unusable. In fact most of the beds are so dilapidated that they could even be health hazards to patients who come to the hospital seeking health and healing.
Likewise, the ceilings are in poor shape – water and moisture from bathrooms/toilets in the upper floor have broken through. The Facebook group members also found that most of the bulb and the bulb holders aren’t even working. They were replaced with the more proficient fluorescent bulbs by the youths
Audits and updates on the current drive would soon be posted on Facebook. With the contributions that came in from the current campaign from members, citizens and well-wishers, the administrators of The Naga Blog will be chalking out a plan soon to redo the interiors of the post-natal section in the second phase of the social work.
