One of the aspects of the health care which I have great respect for here is the willingness of the hospital staff to be open to traditional medicine. When I first came here as a medical student in 2007 they were at that time discussing having an Ayurvedic doctor on staff. As I am certain that I have mentioned before he was one of the very first people that I met here and a very interesting guy. Splitting his time between teaching in Bangalore and practicing here he has a wonderful passion for his craft and for the tribal way of life. Part of what I find fascinating about Ayurveda is the holistic approach which it has. This type of medicine is not considered as just some compound which can distilled down and handed to you in a pill, it includes all aspects of your life and everything you do with or put into your body whether it be the food you eat, your activity levels or the way you react in certain situations.
In some ways I think traditional medicines work well here because the population are so much more clued in to their natural rhythms and the cycles of nature than the average city dweller. One very florid example of this is the fact that on full moons there are a significantly larger number of tribal babies delivered in the hospital. When I was first told this I scoffed slightly. I figured that this could not really be the case but I must admit that I have noticed the correlation myself. On a normal day/night we might deliver one or perhaps two babies. On a full moon I have delivered up to five in a 24 hour period.
Even though I am open minded about Ayurveda I do like to tease our doctor here and occasionally question his pearls of wisdom. For example you should not mix bananas with dairy products because this creates a sort of “slow poison”. Even if this is true I refuse to believe it mainly because I am a massive fan of banana milkshake! It also appears to me that almost anything in Ayurveda either contains honey or can be mixed with it. I am less concerned about this and far more likely to agree with it mainly because I like honey, a lot.
In the last week our wonderful Ayurvedic doctor has agreed to take us for some Yoga classes at the request of the medical students. I have done a bit of Yoga in the UK with a really lovely instructor who is also a friend of mine so I was not too nervous to join in even though there was quite a lot of hospital staff coming along. It was really great and I am glad that I joined them. Very simple actions and certainly not straining myself at all but I must admit that after a few sessions my muscles and joints felt very grateful for the stretch out.
Over all I feel that natural medicines can be a very positive part of the healing process although not necessarily advisable on their own. Today an elderly lady came in three weeks after a fall onto an outstretched hand. At the time she had broken her wrist but instead of coming to the hospital had gone to a natural doctor in the village who had wrapped it in a very tight herbal compress. Unfortunately this means that now the bones have partially fused in a "dinner fork" deformity which will in all likelyhood permanently effect her functioning. The message here is that we don't want people to stop using their natural medicines altogether, only that we would rather use them in symphony with what we can offer rather than instead of.
The lovely Alan arrived in India last week so in my next blog entry I will be telling you all about his visit so far. I am referring to it euphemistically as a holiday although for a large proportion of the time it has involved me bringing him along to work with me...
Anyway lots of love and catch up soon.
A x
Hope you like the pic, Alan managed to capture this little guy on film. Sometimes life is not fair, I am here for 6 months and within a week Al has a better kingfisher photo than me!
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