Prompted by a strong sense of duty and willingness to serve the people, Dr Poonam Khajuria of Udhampur has been unfailingly contributing in the battle against COVID19 pandemic since last year.
A 45 year old Dental Surgeon, Dr Poonam is presently posted at Public Healthcare Center Jaganoo, Udhampur, and leads the vaccination team in the area. With her indomitable spirit and able leadership, she has more than 16,000 vaccinated people to her credit.
Prior to this assignment, she was appointed as the nodal officer of COVID care center in 2020, which saw over 300 recoveries and merely 12 referrals of total 357 patients. It was probably the longest serving CCC in Udhampur, and got de-notified recently.
About her ongoing task, she tells, “We started the vaccination exercise early March for people above 45 years of age. A fortnight back, we started vaccinating people in the 18-44 age group. We began with the listed priority groups. In all, we have been able to cover more than 16,000 people, yet far from the target.”
She was among the first to set up medical camps in villages of her zone for vaccination, as the villagers had difficulty in travelling to the centralized vaccination centers. Distant villages of Jaganoo zone, Jakhani zone with difficult terrains fall in her domain.
“Rural setting is very different and this influenced our vaccination strategy. These people miss their work, dihadis and daily wage, travel for hours by public transport for vaccination. Some of them are even suffering from health issues. We thought it was better to reach them rather than waiting for them to reach us,” she says.
Regarding the remaining population, she says that they have conducted a survey with the help of Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to identify who all are left, and in which areas, followed by discussion with the medical teams how to vaccinate them.
While some of the remaining population can be reached out quite comfortably, she thinks nomadic population of Gujjar-Bakkerwal communities living in sparsely located dhoks in Upper and Lower Bali villages would be difficult to trace.
Her team consists of atleast two Female MultiPurpose Health Workers who are vaccinators, atleast two BLOs who verify and update the digital record on the software, an ambulance driver, and a site in-charge to ensure fair vaccination.
“Number of members in the team on any given day depends on the population and area we plan to cover. There have been days, when we required 3 BLOs,” Dr Poonam says.
The team always keeps an Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) kit handy. Also, precautionary items like gowns, gloves, sanitisers, headgears, etc are available for them on the sites.
“We medical team members are already vaccinated with both the doses. It is time to vaccinate others,” she says.
Pertinent to share that until now, that is, three and a half month of vaccination exercise, her team has never faced any resistance from the people.
“There are videos showing people attacking the medical team, questioning the vaccination, or medical team’s high handedness while vaccinating. Thankfully, any of such things didn’t happen with us. Motivation and counseling worked,” she mentions.
She remembers Mohammad Hussain, a centenarian, resident of Kashedi who walked all the way to medical camp for vaccination. “It was a happy feeling to see people responding like this to the exercise.”
Despite her rigorous COVID duty, she keeps up a happy and positive attitude which she gets from a healthy lifestyle and devotion to God.
“Exercise, yoga, morning walk and praying to God are part of my routine. It has helped me throughout my life and unprecedented COVID duty,” she tells.
The only time, she felt disappointed was when she fractured her foot while coming back from a vaccination drive of frontline workers, as that meant she’ll be away for the next 2-3 months from actively participating in the COVID mitigation efforts. Still, she continued, against the medical advice, her noble work with plastered foot thinking it as a social endeavor towards mankind once in a lifetime assigned by almighty.
When asked about if she feared contracting the virus herself or falling sick, she says, “I have been chosen to serve the people, so I didn’t fear any task, however tough, I was given. Somehow I have managed to escape falling prey to COVID despite being on the forefront of dealing with it. God has been kind enough.”
She is grateful to the higher medical authorities for reposing immense faith in her for executing the duty on field and gives credit to all the Covid health ground warriors without whom this herculean task could not be achieved.
Also: Read my article at The News Now
Doctor leads fight against infection in rural Udhampur
Published in The News Now on 20th June, 2021
waliaharry 