Blog Details
Subrata Nandi, aged 56 years, lives at Mollapara ,a remotest village of Nabadwip block in Nadia district of West Bengal. He is the only earning member of his family of seven people including his aged parents, wife and three school going children By occupation, Subrata is a rickshaw puller, ferrying passengers to and from Nabadwip Dham Railway Station. As this station is served by limited number of trains throughout the day so the income opportunity for Subrata is also limited. Somehow, he manages to secure just two squares of meals a day for his family of seven including him.
In such circumstances he was suffering with severe earache following discharge from his right ear in the year 2014. As the outskirt of Nabadwip has a severe lacking of modern medical facilities as well as qualified doctors so the villagers of Mollapara along with Subrata mostly depends on the advice of quack doctors. Initially Subrata was advised by that quack to use some medicated oil as ear drop to treat his illness which initially gave him relief from that excruciate pain but after passing few months the same symptoms came back but unfortunately this time that medicated oil could not able to provide him the relief .
Having frustrated he ignored his illness and owing to financial incapability, his illness remained unchecked for another couple of years. Hence often, a situation arose where argument broke out between Subrata and his passenger. Simple reason for such argument was that the passenger quoted a fare before hiring for a ride on Subrata’s rickshaw and poor Subrata, without being able to hear the quoted amount properly, agreed to that fare thinking the agreed amount was as per his expectation. Sometimes, such arguments used to take a serious turn.
As days passed on incidentally in the year 2017 following the targeted geographical area we from Turnstone Global started to focus on the elimination of the cases of hearing loss in young adults and aged of Nadia district and in this contrary we organized multiple satellite ear checkup camp with free Audiometry Test along with free distribution of hearing aids to the underprivileged people of Nabadwip Block .During such camping our volunteers working in Nabadwip area identified Subrata and brought him to one of our medical camps. After obtaining Audiogram report, it was found that he was suffering with sensorineural hearing loss due to suffering with some viral infection in past. However Subrata was provided a hearing aid in free of cost. Today, Subrata happily ferries his passengers and arguments over fare has not been heard ever since he started using the device and simultaneously his quality of life also improved due to proper hearing and understanding others statements.
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