Daily Wage Earner Workplace Injury

Oni and Gopal are from a rural village. They came to Jaipur to find work and earn enough to return home. Costs in the city are high, though, and with only Gopol’s earnings at a construction site there was not enough for one room rent, electricity, and food. Life was getting more difficult for them both so one day Oni decided to work at the construction site as well.

At the site, she was given tall hard plastic boots to wear. It didn’t take long before she felt a stinging on her legs but if she left mid-day she would forfeit her days wages. At home that evening, she found several open raw wounds around the calves of both legs. She tried as best she could to get them to heal but sought help after they looked worse. A different local private clinic sold her some medicines (the cost of that visit wiped out their meager savings) and it actually made things worse. A good neighbor then told them about Save Kids Trust.

When the doctors at SKT first saw Oni, she was suffering from a high fever with pain and deep infected wounds on both legs. We provided antibiotics and instructed her on proper wound care. She came back to the clinic every day for 2 weeks so we could remove tissue that would impede healing and she continued proper care at home. Oni was in tears over the whole event, upset that their savings was gone, and grateful that SKT could provide her proper treatment. We are happy to have helped Oni and Gopal.

Additional Insight: Dr. Saini (SKT’s Executive Director in Jaipur, India) said skin wounds of this type are typical and scary because if the healing doesn’t progress as it should, the wound can get into muscle tissue. Once muscle is impacted the chance of recovery is difficult. He has seen several cases where the person is left crippled or missing a limb after a severe skin infection. This is a great example of how the work at Save Kids Trust can be lifesaving, therefore life changing, for these informal housing residents.