Operation clean-up starts at Civil hospital

The cleanup campaign included mending and painting windows in the gynae ward.

KARACHI:

Young doctors and future medical professionals snapped on gloves on Monday — not to operate on any patients but to clean up gynaecology unit I at Civil Hospital, Karachi (CHK). They started the pilot project of their cleanliness campaign, ‘Soch Hai Sehat Ki’ by scrubbing this ward’s walls.

The third-year students at the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), under the banner of their organisation Serve our Civil Hospital (SOCH), kicked off the initiative, which expresses their desire to “give back” to the hospital that they frequent during their studies. Over 100 volunteers, comprising first- to fifth-year students, participated in the day-long event on Monday.

The campaign includes three projects: Safaye Nisf Eman (cleanliness is faith), Pegham-e-Sehat (message of health) and Saaf Haath, Sehat ka Raaz (clean hands are the secret to good health).

“We are closely associated with CHK because we visit it almost every day,” said volunteer Sidra Tariq, adding that the “extremely unhygienic condition of the hospital is disturbing”.

She said the students thought they needed to give back something in return for all that they learned at the hospital.

SOCH president Gulrayz Ahmed said that the registered NGO has managed to collect Rs300,000 for the campaign but it still desperately needs more funds to keep its efforts going.

An excited Ahmed listed their achievements for the day. “As part of Safaye Nisf Eman, we have hired two sweepers to clean the unit thoroughly twice a day,” he said.

Besides ‘spring cleaning’ the unit, the volunteers also mended ripped window nets, stripped unwanted posters off the walls, replaced broken or fused bulbs with energy savers and painted windows. They also placed dustbins at convenient corners and supplied the ward with cleaning trolleys to ensure the results did not disappear when they left.

Plans to tackle a second unit are in the pipeline. While SOCH members hope they can conduct it as soon as next month, their activities depend on if they have enough money for the project. According to Ahmed, they are also keeping an eye on other issues so that the hospital can function smoothly.

For example, Ahmed said that they had pushed the administration to repair a water motor. As part of Pegham-e-Sehat, volunteers visited nine units and collected data from patients and their attendants on their hygiene habits.

This also included a brief demonstration on the WHO-recommended manner of washing hands, the benefits of boiling water before drinking and other general information on cleanliness.

The team plans to send regular text messages to the people they interviewed as a reminder of their brief interaction. They hope this will convince people to adopt these practices till they become routine.

Ahmed invited other universities and volunteers who wish to help out to join their efforts.

For further details the team can be contacted at 0303-2345671 or at www.soch.net.pk

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2011.