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Feed the Hungry
As the day cooled into evening, we talked to Mr. Karli in his one-room office between open-front commercial stores. His office, too, was open to the busy street where passers-by checked us out. (Fortunately this street wasn’t open to autos.) Mr. Karli is trained in both allopathic and Ayurvedic medicine and has been practicing in the Ganeshpuri area for 22 years. The office is furnished with the basics: a bench, desk, sink, cabinet for medicine and a curtain to shield patients from prying eyes. The doctor works alone. He doesn’t run short of medicines and keeps the drugs that need refrigeration in his home. He has no bathroom for patients; does not keep people overnight and doesn’t do deliveries. However, pregnant women come to him with other complaints. He doesn’t give out contraceptives. He says he sees 1000 people per month. He sees two to three people a day who have malaria although it’s said that “there’s no malaria now.” Eighty percent of the children under five that he treats are malnourished, and 80% of all his patients have anemia. Of the people with anemia, about 80% can afford to buy iron supplements needed to remedy it. He says every single person who comes to him has worms. The major source of worms in the area is the water supply. Mr. Karli sends four or five patients a month for HIV tests and never sees them again. Ten percent of his patients have TB and are sent to special centers to be treated. His total fee depends upon how much the medication adds to his basic fee. He can treat people for free but can’t afford to provide free medication to all those who can’t pay. He estimates that about 25% of his patients can’t afford to pay for the medication. In addition, he mentioned that many patients were too poor to pay for transportation to the hospital in emergencies. TMA could the help the people of Ganeshpuri by providing money for medicine and transportation to hospitals through Mr. Karli. “He would ask that the money be collected and after a few days when there was enough he would order a feast for the poor. He would allow only the finest quality foods to be purchased and would himself help in preparing and distributing the food. He would ladle out huge portions to each person even when it appeared that there was not enough food to go around, but many people who had been present at these feedingsattested that the food never ran out before everyone had had enough. Later when he had established a permanent ashram at Ganeshpuri, he instituted a daily feeding of the poor children in the area which continues even today.” Bhagawan Nityananda,
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