Cooperating with Jaipur Government to Treat Chronic Patients

Most children we see in our clinics are suffering from simple conditions that we treat successfully with one or a few visits to the clinic. Sometimes, however, a child has a chronic condition or one that is more complicated and that doesn’t respond to our treatments.

We track the progress of all our patients and the staff in each clinic are watching for children with chronic conditions that require diagnosis or treatment reaching beyond our capabilities. Each week, we identify the 5-10 most needy children and transport them to the primary government hospital in Jaipur where they are seen by Dr. Rinku Saini, Save Kids Trust’s Director, and pediatrician at the hospital.

Every Monday morning, SKT staff meet the children and parents in the clinic areas and travel with them by tuk-tuk to the hospital. SKT pays for this transportation on this first visit and SKT staff accompany the kids and their parents onto the hospital campus, show them where to go, how to sign in, and where to cue to see the Doctor.

The exams, treatments, and medicines are free in the Rajasthani hospitals. However, the families we serve typically don’t even try to access these services because they can’t afford the time lost from work to cue up and navigate a complicated system. Save Kids Trust helps these families learn how to successfully navigate in this arena. And being able to initially arrange scheduled times to see the Doctor (it is normally a ‘show up and cue’ system) is very valuable.

Save Kids Trust has been using this approach every Monday for the last few months. Most of our uniquely challenging chronic cases have now been seen and are being tracked in this manner. Next, we will focus on presenting the malnourishment and anemic cases we see in our clinics.

Parents are very impressed with our support to get them into the governmental system for these ongoing needs. They are responsible for return visits on their own.