Published on: April 16, 2018

Sherin Wilfred, Medical Social Worker at Pallium India, writes:

On 24 March 2018, during our home visit to Murukkumpuzha, we visited Mr Purushothaman (75 years), who has old age issues. He has weakness in his lower limbs, is unable to walk and needs help for his daily needs.

Our team noticed that the patient was left alone in the house. One of his daughters visits him in the morning and provides food for him. When we reached his home around 10:30 a.m., he was lying on the floor on a mat, and was soaked in urine. There were ants crawling around him and he had wounds between his toes from ant-bite. We cleaned the patient and swept the floor, and cleaned his wounds. A soft mattress was provided for him.

Meanwhile, we tried to get help from the neighbors. We informed Mr. Francis Ernest (community volunteer) regarding the patient’s condition. As part of the intervention, he contacted the Ezhava community group. With the help of the group members, the patient was transferred from Trivandrum to Bangalore to be with his eldest daughter.

I believe this was a great teamwork in improving the quality of life of this patient. This was possible with the strongest support of our volunteers and the palliative care team – Dr. Sathyasheelan, Sr Seena, Mr. Sujin (volunteer), Mr. Rajeev and myself.