Report of the treatment of a 15yo girl with polio in the
Shakyamuni Buddha Community Health Care Center
This is a short story about a patient who is currently receiving care from the Polio Programme at Root Institute. There are also several photos which show the patient's contracted leg, both lying and standing, and there are photos of the process of applying the plaster. The man in the red shirt is Sanjay Kumar, the physiotherapy assistant who has been with the programme many years.
The air was hot and dry, but a gentle breeze brought comfort to the courtyard of the Shakyamuni Buddha Community Health Care Centre at Bodhgaya’s Root Institute. Arriving for the morning clinic, more than one hundred patients came from distant villages and huddled beneath the shade trees as they waited to register. In turn, each would recount to the clinic doctor a history of fever, cough, skin lesions, or painful breathing.
Among the waiting crowd was Nilu Kumari, a 15 year old school girl who had come 35 kilometres from Ram Nagar village.
Nilu’s mother tells the story of how the young adolescent had developed paralysis in her left leg as an infant. She was not one year old at the time when polio caused irreparable damage to the leg, now making it impossible for Nilu to walk without a limp. Over time, the muscles in the leg tightened and Nilu was no longer able to extend the leg so that the foot could touch the ground. The contracture affected Nilu’s balance, forcing her to walk with her hand on the left knee to keep from falling.
 
Two weeks ago, Nilu had been instructed by the clinic’s physiotherapy staff to do home exercises to begin to stretch the muscles in the affected leg. She had been doing the exercises daily to prepare for today’s return appointment to have a plaster cast applied which would continue the stretching. Each week, for three consecutive visits, a small cut will be made in the plaster cast behind the knee, allowing the Physiotherapy staff to stretch the leg another few degrees, locking it in place for the next week with more plaster. Eventually, Nilu will be able to extend her leg fully and walk with the help of metal callipers (braces) fabricated in the Clinic’s own workshop.
Under the direction of the Clinic Coordinator, Dr. Sanjy Mishra, and with teaching offered by many western volunteers, the Clinic’s now-experienced Physiotherapy Assistant, Sanjay Kumar, skilfully applies the plaster which will reduce the contracture and bring new freedom to Nilu Kumari. Frightened by the stretching and this strange sensation of hot plaster being applied to the leg, Nilu is comforted by Sanjay’s soft voice and compassionate manner as he mindfully molds the plaster into the proper form.
 
The continuation of the treatment of Nilu, a young girl, Nilu has done well with her plan of care. The plaster process was quite successful and she is now walking with a caliper. You will see at the photos how straight her leg is. Nilu is home in her village but comes periodically to the mobile clinic which visits in a nearby village two times weekly. These photos were taken during the mobile clinic village.
 
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