Address At The Inauguration Of The Annual General Meeting Of Indian Red Cross Society And St. John Ambulance

Service to Humanity is Service to God

I am indeed delighted to participate in the inauguration of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Indian Red Cross Society and St. John Ambulance. My greetings to the members of Red Cross Society, St. John members, Government functionaries, medical professionals, NGOs, volunteers and distinguished guests on this occasion. I congratulate the award winners for their notable contributions towards promoting the task of the society. Red Cross Society and the St. John Ambulance, the twin organization always come to the rescue of human beings when they are in distress. These organizations work selflessly and bring cheer to the people at the time when no other organized facility is available. They work with the motto ?service to humanity is service to God?. I am sure God?s blessings will always be there with the members of this organization endeavouring to bring cheers to the suffering humanity.

New Initiatives

The work done by the Red Cross Society in places like Gujarat, Assam, Bihar which has been hit by severe natural calamities, is commendable. The initiative of creating the National Disaster Response Team and Mobile Disaster Unit will definitely improve the availability of relief measures to the victim within the shortest possible time after the occurrence of the disaster. With years of selfless service, this Organization has earned the reputation of being a user friendly organization and everyone is looking forward for their presence whenever a calamity arises. Red Cross society has a unique axiom that providing relief to the pain of the people is most important mission and is a God given mission. I have seen whenever there is an attempt to subjugate the mission and the person becomes superior to the mission, both the mission and the person fails. For every member of the Red Cross society, mission of removing the pain has to be greater than himself or herself.

Meeting with Swiss President

I must appreciate the efficiency and the clock work precision in which the Red Cross functions. I will recall my meeting with the Swiss President, when we talked about the earthquake in Bhuj. The Swiss President informed me that the Swiss Red Cross authorities felt very sorry that there was a delay of six hours in despatching the first plane load of relief materials to India. And this delay was on account of their own procedural formalities, which had to be fulfilled before their planes could land on Indian soil. Action is on to reduce even this delay arising out of procedural formalities. If a delay of six hours could be remembered after so many years, I can imagine the level of efficiency and precision, which have been drilled into the Red Cross society and its members. I informed the President of Switzerland that during my visit to Switzerland, definitely I would like to spend some time to study the methods by which the Swiss Red Cross Society is able to ensure quality performance in time.

Timely Help to Accident Victims

Apart from natural calamities that visit us, the frequent accidents occurring in our metropolitan cities and certain big towns is a matter of concern. Whenever the road accident occurs, it has been noticed that there is a considerable amount of delay between the time of occurrence of the accident and the provision of medical help to the needy victim. This situation is prevalent mainly because of the fear of medico-legal issues. People are apprehensive of coming to the rescue of the victims. Even the hospital asks for the presence of the Police and completion of formalities before they can start treating the patients. This I think is not a very desirable situation. I would suggest that Red Cross and St. John Ambulance can come forward with a scheme in which whenever an accident occurs message can be given to the nearest Red Cross or St. John Ambulance Team, who in turn must arrange immediate medical help to the victim. Many times non-availability of timely medical intervention leads to fatality of the victim. This can be overcome by the intervention provided by the Red Cross Team. A legal mechanism may be worked out for facilitating the role of Red Cross kind of organizations for providing such emergency support in critical situations. I am sure if given an opportunity you all will definitely rise to the occasion.

Mobilizing the Youth for Relief and Societal Cause

I understand that there are a large number of members in the country participating in the Junior Red Cross and Youth Red Cross Movement. Certain States like Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana have made the membership for Junior Red Cross and Youth Red Cross compulsory for all the schools and colleges in the State. In respect of Delhi, it is compulsory only for Junior Red Cross. It is estimated that the number of members of Junior Red Cross and Youth Red Cross may be about four to five millions spread all over the country. This youth force is a very important resource for providing timely relief to the needy at the time of occurrence of a disaster. They are the enlightened citizens of the society. This resource trained by Red Cross apart from providing help during the natural calamities, they can also be deployed in advising the rural population on hygiene practices and provision of nutrition to the school going children. In addition, the voluntary bodies can utilize the services of these members for propagating the importance and necessity of immunization of the children against polio, tuberculosis and other water-borne diseases. This will be one of the ways of eradicating these diseases from our rural areas and make the nation healthy.

Facilitating Medical Support to the Poor

Recently, I received a letter from a kind-hearted person from Kolkata. He has brought to my attention an incident which took place on 18th September 2004 at the Calcutta Medical College. The brief narration of the incident is as follows:

A pregnant lady went to Calcutta Medical College for delivery. She had no one with her and she was not literate also. She had approached the emergency ward to get admitted. In the emergency ward they said: ?not here, this is not the place of delivery, go to maternity ward?. But the poor lady did not know where to go. Nobody guided her to the maternity ward. Finally, after three days on 18th September 2004 she gave birth to a baby in a car shed of the hospital. At the time of delivery, in the car shed hundreds of people including doctors, nurses and students passed by, but nobody paid attention. She screamed with pain but nobody was there to help her. After the delivery the mother and the new born were lying in the car shed in the dust. None of the doctors neither the nurses came up to cut her umbilical cord. After an hour two men and one woman came forward and took the responsibility of admitting the mother and the new born in the maternity ward. I am sure this is one of the many incidents which is taking place in many cities and towns in our country. How can we prevent such casual treatment and provide support to the poor people? Can the Red Cross and the St. John Ambulance take a lead in this regard and find a method by which the needy members of the weaker sections get timely medical help during such emergencies when no one is available to come to their rescue.

Rehabilitation of Destitute Children

I understand that a Red Cross branch is functioning at Namakkal in Tamil Nadu for serving the children of HIV positive mothers. This is a good initiative. I would suggest that at least one Centre per District in every State should be established for looking after such children so that quality education can be provided to them with love and affection. This will definitely make the lives of these ?Children of God? better and help them in making their contribution to the development of the society. Such facility can also be extended to the children of leprosy and TB patients who also get ostracized by the society. Recently, I visited RAPHAEL, the Ryder Cheshire International centre at Dehra Dun where rehabilitation support is being provided to leprosy patients, children of leprosy patients, tuberculosis patients and their children. I thought this sort of service can be provided by the Red Cross Society also on a wider scale since this institution is functioning in all parts of the country.

Conclusion

All Members of the Red Cross Society and the St. John Ambulance are in the mission of providing support with love and affection. You are definitely in a noble mission. You have been extending this service without any bias. Your ideals are lofty and you have proved your credibility with long years of selfless service. I am sure the members of the Red Cross Society and the St. John Ambulance will definitely uphold the dignity and high traditions set by your predecessors. Let the rays of service to humanity spread throughout the world.

My best wishes to all the members of this noble organization for success in your missions of removing the pain of the suffering people.

May God bless you all.