The Ashoka Tree Blog

The viscous circle of poverty keeps churning on like the gears in a well-oiled clock, and the only way to put a spoke in it is to start making a change.   At The Ashoka Tree, our idea of ‘making a change’ means helping where we can and connecting people who need help with those who want to help.   Our visit to the Isolation Ward at the Ernakulam General Hospital reinforced that.   Not only does there remain a huge gap in the kind of medical facilities available through different sections of society, general awareness of different diseases and their prevention seems more a part of advertisements on state television than an actual reality. The Ashoka Tree, thus, organized a small collection of bed linen, night clothes and toiletries, with a little help from our little helpers at the Kids Club and a lot of help from our friends, for the Isolation/Destitute Ward at the General Hospital. While conditions couldn’t seem to get worse at this ward, with the general aura of despair and

Life, inevitably, sends us places we don’t really want to go.   For some of us, it’s that visit to the dentist for that unwanted, but oh so warranted, root canal.   For others, it’s probably the family wedding you don’t want to attend, the off-site work at an unknown place, the transfer to a small town.   For most people, however, it’s that hospital admission – having to be admitted in hospital for an ailment you never saw coming- the expenses involved, the seemingly pointless days spent in hospital, the lack of income during those unproductive days in hospital. While it’s easy to fuss about having to be admitted, a visit to the Government-run General Hospital in your city is bound to change your mind and keep you grateful for the kind of service you can otherwise afford when you get ill. Our visit to the General Hospital led to some painful sights and heartbreaking moments.   With merely 24 beds, there were over 50 patients waiting in the ‘Isolation Ward’.   This is where pa