International Clinic in India

Our speaker for the September 8th meeting was our old friend, Abul Sharat. a member of the Bloomington Club, and the founder of International Village Clinic in Chandauli, India. He gave us a brief history of the clinic's start and updated us on the present services and direction, and he told us where the clinic is headed. The clinic is located in a very poor province on India, near the birthplace of Abul. He left his home and homeland at an early age and got his education in a number of schools and colleges around the world. On a visit back to India, he saw that there was no clinic in this area; people could not afford to go to the larger city hospitals so many people had no health care available. With the help of several Rotary Clubs, be began the clinic in February, 2002. The size of the clinic has grown from being in the back of a truck to now being housed in several nice buildings. Much of the electric power used by the clinic is provided by solar panels, and they don't have to rely on the local utility for service. Thru 2008, the clinic has served 58,000 patients, now offering around-the-clock emergency services used by 3600 patients in 2008. They offer ambulance services in a radius of 30 miles, using their two vehicles. They now have a 12 bed hospital that housed 1,032 patients last year. They performed 162 surgeries and delivered 35 babies. A special problem in the area is nutrition and vitamin shortages, and they held an eye clinic that served 365 patients and performed 39 cataract surgeries.