A Brief History

Calcutta Rescue surely owes its life to Dr. Jack Preger, known to his friends and colleagues as Dr. Jack. A British national, Dr. Jack came to South Asia in the early 1970s. The story goes something like this.

He recalls a lunch break at his Irish Hospital, quietly listening to the Dublin radio. It was a time of great unrest in the Bangladesh region, famous for its political disturbances and natural disasters, and was reeling from the recently finished liberation struggle. The report spoke of refugees and mass suffering, calling for assistance from doctors all over the world. Having recently completed his medical training, Dr. Jack soon found himself on board a plane heading for Dhaka, a journey that was to change his life forever.

Dr. Jack stayed in Bangladesh working with local NGO’s until 1979, when his departure from the country was sudden. In the course of his work over the 7 years he spent there, Dr. Jack discovered one of the country's more unpleasant secrets - a child exporting racket, master-minded by some of the more senior bureaucrats and a Dutch NGO. Keen to put an end to such corruption, he set about unveiling the deceit, but such action was to cost him his visa.

Dr. Jack was deported to Bangkok and then came to Calcutta. He had pledged to dedicate his life to easing the lifelong suffering of others, and Calcutta seemed a good place to continue, with its problems of overpopulation, pollution, lack of adequate investment in infrastructure, migrant labour refugees, and illiteracy, to name a few.

He set about his work alone. His friends recall how they first met Jack perched upon an upturned bucket underneath a tree on one of the city's roads. There he worked, examining patients and distributing medicines gratis. He was a small hope to those who were ignored by the system and hated by society - the leprosy patients, and the untouchables.

By and by, people began to take notice of this strange individual sitting alone with a gradually growing crowd around him. As word spread about 'the good doctor', so the number of patients grew, and others came to see and help. Soon he had assistants, some from abroad, and some from the local area. With the new interest in his work also came donations, both of money and of drugs. Soon the organisation started to take shape and Calcutta Rescue was registered under the Societies Registration Act.

The current activities of Calcutta Rescue consist of health interventions and providing sustenance delivered through our outpatient’s clinics; non-formal schools and handicrafts projects.


Calcutta Rescue Clinics

Tala Park

TalaPark Clinic is Calcutta Rescue’s Mother and Child Clinic. Patients are treated for a variety of conditions, given preventative medicine and health education, and ante/prenatal care. A dressing’s section provides care for those with wounds or burns. Immunisation is carried out at another Calcutta Rescue clinic.

The mother and child unit has been allocated a private room at the north side of the clinic for holding ante-natal and post-natal examinations. Advice is given on family planning.

Home delivery sets are offered to those multigravid mothers who have a good obstetric and medical history, and who wish to deliver at home. We also provide a step-by-step picture guide for the local midwives. By providing the delivery sets we hope to minimise the risk of puerperal sepsis attained through contamination during labour and decrease the risk of umbilical infection in the newborn infant.

Our health workers receive individual instruction in ante-natal and post-natal care. The health workers, under supervision of the midwife, have been learning how to document the care they give in the ante-natal and post-natal clinics. They thereby learn how to prioritise care, ask appropriate questions and give appropriate advice in a systematic manner. Adult male and female patients are also treated at the Talapark clinic.

Sealdah

Adult patients are seen at Sealdah clinic, located in the Loreto School playground in central Calcutta. Patients go firstly to Chitpur Ghat, an area next to the Hooghly River where the doctor screen’s patients to determine whether they are eligible for treatment. Eligible patients are taken by ambulance to the clinic. Patients see the doctor,are investigated receive their medicines via an interpreter, and receive health education. We give benefits of food, transport money and clothes to patients, and some also receive help with school fees and books for their children, rent or house repairs.

Apart from the general patients, who present with a variety of conditions, an average of six cardiac and fourteen diabetic patients visit the clinic each day. In addition to treatment, a number of other medical programmes operate from Sealdah, including advice on family planning (in conjunction with the West Bengal Family Planning Association who provide tubal ligation and copper T intra-uterine devices), and immunisation. A vaccination programme has been also running. Each Thursday children come from Tala park clinic, No. 10 and Canalside schools by jeep. Vaccinations (OPV, DPT/DT, BCG and measles) are collected from the West Bengal District Welfare Office and administered at the clinic. In terms of outreach, two staff visits slum areas each week and bring those in need of treatment to the clinic. They also give health education to the people in those areas, with the intention of making them aware of their right to good health.

Chitpur

Chitpur clinic, operating from the banks of the Hooghly river under a temporary bamboo and tarpaulin structure, sees leprosy patients from Calcutta and surrounding areas. In addition to providing medicine Calcutta Rescue provides health education and support on a social, financial and nutritional basis.

A pharmacist’s assistant distributes medicines after assessment of the patients by the doctor. Anti-leprosy drugs are provided for either six months or three years, depending on what sort of leprosy the patient has. Patients also present with other medical conditions, which are treated on site. A trained physiotherapist comes on a regular basis to treat certain patients. Podiatry has a large role to play in Chitpur, as the majority of our patients have large neuropathic ulcers that need regular wound care treatment. A volunteer podiatrist works together with the two dressings staff. They discuss cases together and plan treatments accordingly. Many leprosy patients with foot wounds need special shoes, which they often get from Titagarh, the Missionaries of Charity leprosy hospital.

Health education on leprosy takes place every morning with the use of laminated picture cards. The health educator speaks to the patients as a group about topics such as foot, hand and eye care, the importance of taking medicines regularly, and regular attendance at the clinic, with the aim of motivating the patients to gain more knowledge about their problems and learn how to deal with them. If necessary we can provide benefits such as soap, clothing, shoes, transport money, plastic sheets, walking aids, spectacles, school fees, house rent, handicap cards and medical expenses. We repair an average of one hut per month, costing about Rs. 1000. There is a micro credit rehabilitation programme for these patients.

Belgachia

Belgachia is our newest clinic, and staffed by one nurse, two doctor’s, three general workers and seven outreach workers. It is situated very close to our existing clinic at Tala Park, in Ward 3 of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation: an area where the residents predominantly belong to lower income groups and in which the estimated population is 60,000, with an average of six persons per family. In the middle of February 1999, DOTS ( Direct Observation Treatment Shortcourse), the tuberculosis programme organised by the WHO and run by the Indian government began in the clinic. The clinic also receives other tuberculosis patients from our catchment area who had previously started treatment in Tala Park clinic. Daily attendance is approximately 45 patients. Those in need of antenatal or postnatal care, Vitamin A or vaccinations are referred to Tala Park Clinic. Heart and diabetic patients go to Sealdah.

A large part of the work at Belgachia is community outreach. Only those patients who are referred by an outreach worker may enter the clinic. The outreach workers also fulfill the role of health providers, health educators and agents of change, visiting the catchment areas five days a week between 9.15 a.m. and 2 p.m.


Calcutta Rescue Schools

The main aim of the schools is to provide their students with education, handicraft training, food, clothing and medication. The Calcutta Rescue school at No. 10 Nilmoni Mitra St. is running with around 150 students from slums and local pavements. This school is housed in a small two storied building. Due to shortage of space, the school is divided into two shifts. The first shift is 9am to 11am; the second runs from 12.30pm to 2.40pm. The time between the two shifts is allocated for lunch for all students. Students are taught Hindi, Bengali, English, Maths and General Knowledge. Gradually children are taught both to read and to write. As they improve they move into higher classes; Levels I, II and III. Those children who are of the right age in Level III, and who are good at their studies are sent on to formal schools.

The second school accommodates 60 children. This school is situated on the side of the Circular Canal at Maniktala. The children who attend the school live in the areas directly surrounding the Canal so they can easily walk between their homes and the school. Canalside school also has two shifts. The younger children are taught in the mornings and Levels I and II students are taught in the afternoons. Last year, for the first time, children were also sent to formal school.

The third school is situated next to our clinic at Tala Park. It has 130 children (aged between 4 and 12 years) on the register, who, as in the other schools, attend in two shifts.

The children who come to our schools are not only in need of an education, but also medical support, nutritional support and clothing benefits. When the children first arrive in school they are given milk and either a banana or high protein biscuits. They are also later given a nutritious meal. A comprehensive medical programme is provided for the students; there is a medical room with a doctor, nurse and health workers at No. 10 school, which also covers the Canalside school. Tala Park school children are covered by Tala Park clinic.The medical programme provides screenings and treatment for diseases and conditions such as anaemia, angular stomatitis (vitamin B deficiency), vitamin A deficiency, malnutrition, epilepsy and TB, and care for burns or wounds. All children are immunised with OPV, DPT/DT, BCG and measles vaccines at the Sealdah clinic.

Health Education is given weekly, covering topics such as Vitamin A deficiency, the importance of diet, prevention of TB, malaria, worms, scabies and diarrhoea, as well as basic hygiene, health and safety at home, the administration of medication and other relevant topics. We have recently devised a family planning programme in which school children are given sex education in small groups of the same sex at Tala Park.


Handicrafts

Calcutta Rescue, in South 24 Parganas, runs two spinning and weaving courses for boys from poor backgrounds, with the aim of providing training to improve their employment prospects. The two spinning and weaving centres are Canning and Tamuldah . In addition to the training in spinning and weaving, the boys receive a basic education, following a similar syllabus to that at the other Calcutta Rescue schools; namely Bengali, English and Mathematics, and indoor and outdoor games. The units produce items such as bed sheets, shawls and fabric for dresses, shirts, bags, and saris/lunghis for our patients.

A sewing programme is based at No. 10 school, employing 36 women, many of whom are either widows, deserted, or have sick or unemployed husbands, and 6 men. They make clothes for our patients, using cloth from Canning or Tamuldah wherever possible, and embroidered handicrafts.

These handicrafts are being sold by supporters of Calcutta Rescue to raise funds for further work in India. If you would like to support our work and purchase some of our beautiful, handmade items, please browse our catalogue, and get in touch with us via email to place an order.


Financial status

There is an enormous amount of costs involved in running a programme offering free curative medical care - cost of medicines, pathological investigations, X rays, surgeries, nutritional supplements; doctors and staff salaries, etc. There are recurring expenditures and without external financing it is not possible to run these programmes. Our Support Groups in Europe and Northern America provide 98 % of our annual expenses. This is mainly comprised of donations from individuals. Only 2 % come from local donations in India. We are conscious that this amount has to be increased and we are working very hard to search for financial support from big companies in India. We have recently been granted exemption of tax under section 80G for the period April 1999 to March 2000.

Annual Projected expenses of Calcutta Rescue for the year 1999-2000 are Rs. 1,52,28,297 ($ 380,707) as per our Projected Income and Expenditure Account. The Excess of Income over Expenditure (Surplus) for this year (Projected) is Rs. 30,30,303 and the Fixed Assets purchased during this year is (Projected) Rs. 3,22,228. As per our Projected Balance Sheet, the Acid Test Ratio or Quick Ratio is 162.51: 1. This is a method to determine the true financial solvency position of an organisation.

The major heads of expenses of Calcutta Rescue for the year 1999-2000 are given below, all figures are in Indian Rupees ($1 = Rs.43)

Our expenses can be classified into Patient Expenses (40%), Staff Expenses (39%), Unit Expenses (7%), Vehicle Expenses (2%), Other Expenses (9%), and Provision for depreciation and others (3%).

Fund Allocation Statement for 2001-2002 (Financial Year)

Current funds received: Rupees 15 lakhs per month
Fund requirement for 2001-2002: Rupees 25 lakhs per month

Proposed Projects	Beneficiaries	Main activity	Major cost items	Projected expenses
1. Arsenic control and mitigation at Bamongram, Malda (West Bengal)	Village population: 18,000 (approx)	To supply arsenic-free drinking water and awareness generation on effects of arsenic poisoning. Palliative treatment of arsenicosis.	Installation of arsenic filters and hand pumps, medicines and investigations, staff salaries, transport, management support costs.	Rs 2.32 lakhs per month
2. Tuberculosis control programme at Tamuldah, 24 Parganas (South), West Bengal	28,000 (approx)	To control and treatment of tuberculosis in cooperation with State T.B. control society. Preventative health care for children less than 12 years.	Medicines, clinical investigations, patient support, staff salaries, transport, management support costs.	Rs 1.70 lakhs per month
3. Vocational Training and Production Centre at Kolkata	Initially 50 persons below the poverty line	To train women in distress and in acute poverty in alternate means of livelihood, initiate income-generating programmes.	Initial startup costs like premises, equipment etc. training costs and regular running costs, cost of raw materials, stipends etc.	Rs. 2.1 lakhs per month

Bi-Monthly Reports

July - August 2001 (PDF: 58 KB)

April- May 2000 (PDF: 48 KB)

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As long as it continues, we can continue to move towards a brighter and more equitable future.