A huge hall at Katra Bariyan at Fatehpuri in Chandni Chowk here functions as a physiotherapy centre. Physiotherapist Dhirender Kumar is busy attending to patients there.
Between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., he diagnoses and treats huge groups of patients, mostly from the poorest of the poor backgrounds. And all of this for free.
One of the four in Delhi, and two in Ghaziabad and Gurgaon, these physiotherapy centres are run by the Narayan Sewa Sansthan. The 30-year-old Udaipur-based organisation works in the field of treatment and rehabilitation of polio-afflicted persons.
CentresThese centres have been around for 12 years, when physiotherapy was not yet an “in-thing” in the Capital.
The other centres are in Jyoti Colony at Shahdara near Durga Mandir; near Madhuban Chowk in Pitampura; Alipur in Badarpur; Kelawalan in Delhi Gate; and Dharamshala in Ghaziabad.
The centres, which employ only qualified physiotherapists, receive 40 to 90 patients a day. Not only are they treated free of cost, at times they are even picked and dropped from stations if they are not in a condition to travel on their own.
Dr. Kumar said the centre treats patients with chronic shoulder pain, cervical problems, tennis elbow, etc., and also takes up fracture cases.
“But polio-affected people are only assessed here. They are then sent to Udaipur’s Narayan Seva Samiti for free treatment or aides like callipers, limbs or wheelchairs.”
“I feel extremely satisfied serving the poor free of cost,” said Dr. Kumar, a qualified physiotherapist from Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya Institute for the Physically Handicapped.
He firmly believes that “only those people who really want to serve humanity without any returns except blessings can work with the Sansthan”.
While he returns to attend his next patient, an 80-year-old bespectacled woman with chronic cervical pain, others smile and nod in agreement.
Sansthan head Prashant Singhal added: “We treat everyone free, however costly the treatment may be. We are soon going to establish a hi-tech, free-of-cost centre for polio-afflicted and other patients in Delhi and Gurgaon. I hope we will finalise the land for the same by July.”
