Pingalwara gets Bihar workers treated, reunites them with family on Holi

Making the festival of Holi special for a group of labourers from city, volunteers of the All India Pingalwara Charitable Society at the Bhagat Puran Singh Ward at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital under Government Medical College arranged for their journey back home, to reunite them with their families. It was an emotional farewell for Dilip Kumar, Suraj, Balram Das and Pawan, who boarded a train to Bihar today, as sewadars of the Pingalwara bid them goodbye.

All four of them worked as daily labourers and were brought to the ward after receiving treatment for various bodily injuries sustained while working or otherwise. All these four patients are residents of Bihar and were treated in the orthopedics and surgery wing of Bhagat Puran Singh Ward. “They had serious injuries; some came with fractured limbs and aggravated, infected injuries and had no one to look after them. They were reported to us and our sewadars (volunteers) brought them to the hospital. After receiving treatment, they were shifted to Bhagat Puran Singh Ward where they recovered as they did not have any one to look after them. When they shared their desire to go back home and re-unite with their families, we got them train tickets and arranged for their journey,” shared Yogesh Suri, administrator, Pingalwara.

The ward run by the Pingalwara Institute at Guru Nanak Hospital has been treating patients of liver cirrhosis, various injuries and sending them home after treatment. Dilip who belonged to Amrori village in Araria district, Suraj from village Dharampur district of Vaishali, Pawan from Basti village of Saharsa and Balram Das, from village Harpur district in Muzaffarpur were working in Amritsar for the last many years. In a world that left them to die, they found hope in strangers and Pingalara’s sewadars have been serving many such abandoned, destitute patients, helping them recover from physical and mental scars.

In the last seven months, Pingalwara received a total of

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35 patients, who were admitted for various diseases.

Dr Inderjit Kaur, Director, Pingalwara, said that hospitals often get patients who are abandoned and do not have anyone to take care of them during their stay there. “The special wards for these patients have volunteers to take care of them as their family members,” she said. The facilities to be provided include food, clothes, medicines and personal care of the patients.

Pingalwara also runs another ward at Sri Guru Ram Das Charitable Hospital.