The vision of Chaupal had sprung from the commitment of Dr. Rajinder Singh Tonk to his ancestral land. After a successful career spanning close to four decades in clinical practice and teaching, Dr. Tonk wanted to give back to the community he had grown up in. In the summer of 2007, he called on a number of like-minded friends. Several years ago, they had left their villages for Delhi in pursuit of better opportunities. Today, they had successful careers and a comfortable lifestyle. He shared with them his aspiration to provide care to the needy in his homestead. From this desire, a mission was born.
Every week, the team of motivated doctors would set up health camps in the villages in Haryana by pooling their own funds. Come Sunday morning, they would leave Delhi at 7AM, driving scores of kilometers in carpools, and spend over 12 hours seeing patients, dispensing medicines, conducting eye exams, performing specialty check-ups such as ECGs. Not only did they diagnose and provide relief for ailments afflicting the rural folk, they educated the locals about how to follow a healthy lifestyle, take care of their environment and village resources, and provide better opportunities for their children. Inspired by the collective decision-making and problem-solving of a chaupal that he had witnessed himself as a child in his own village, Dr. Rajinder Singh Tonk structured the volunteer efforts of his team.
On Aug 15, 2007, Dr. Tonk founded Chaupal, a not-for-profit committed to providing holistic, quality health care to villages that lack access to basic primary care. Today, Chaupal runs health programs through its community health center and holds health camps across Haryana providing specialty care and medications at nominal price. It aims to make villagers stakeholders in their own well-being and also address medical issues such as psychological health and HIV/AIDS that are often pushed to the sidelines.
Chaupal's programs are funded entirely by contributions from donors. It dedicates all its resources towards running the health camps and the health center.
COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER
Chaupal opened its first full-service health center in village Banyapur, Haryana on Nov 19, 2008. The objective was to continue to provide comprehensive care to villagers outside of the weekly health camps.
The center is headed by a specialist in Internal Medicine. He is supported by a full-time medical officer, dental surgeon, physiotherapist, optometrist, medical specialist, and psychiatrist. Supporting the day to day operations are paraclincial staff such as pharmacist, dental technician, lab technician, auxillary nurse midwife, multi-purpose workers, and a driver.
The center also houses physiotherapy equipment including laser-therapy, a laboratory with Johnson & Johnson equipment, Sonadyne ultrasound, facility for ECG, eye exams, pulmonary function test, and complete dental care. It also dispenses world-class generic medicines at a very low, no-profit-basis price.
Similarly lab tests, dental procedures and eye glasses are provided at very nominal charges. The Center has its own transport van donated by Tata Motors to run a range of health programs.
SCHOOL HEALTH PROGRAM
This program headed by a medical officer has an educator, optometrist, and dental hygienist. They cover over 52 schools in 30 villages in a radius of 20km with an estimated 15,000 students. Complete physical, eye, and dental exams are conducted for kids who are also educated about nutrition and healthy habits. Further care, if needed, is provided at the Health Center.
MOTHER AND CHILD PROGRAM
This program provides ante-natal clinical services, and examination and immunization of expecting mothers. Vaccinations are also given to infants. It is managed by the gynaecologist, paeditrician, and auxillary nurse midwife.
EDUCATION AND AWARENESS PROGRAM
The medical officer and educator visit local villages to provide education on nutrition, health, and hygiene. They raise awareness about prevalent nutritional issues such as iron deficiency in women, adverse effects of smoking hukka, and social issues such as female foeticide.
PHYSIOTHERAPY
The Health Center is home to a state of the art physiotherapy set-up. With the help of latest equipment, treatments such as laser therapy, short wave diathermy, tractions, and basic WAX treatment are provided at a very nominal service charge.
DENTAL SERVICES
The Health Center also provides complete dental services such as root canal treatment, extraction, prosthodontics and orthodontics.
EYE SERVICES
The most common preventable causes of blindness are refractory errors and cataract. The Center provides eye examinations and glasses for vision correction. Patients with cataract are taken to the government hospital in Sonipat district for surgery.
LAB SERVICES
The Center houses state of the art machines to conduct examinations such as ultrasound, ECG, and pulmonary function test. For example, biochemistry tests are done by Johnson and Johnson machines.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROGRAM
Chaupal's innovative approach is that of a "Clinic on Wheels" that makes quality, affordable health care accessible to villagers.
This program runs weekly health camps that focus on one village at a time. The Chaupal team contacts the village sarpanch and schedules a camp on a Sunday of the week. The team of specialists - physician, paediatrician, gynaecologist, social preventive specialist, psychiatrist, orthopaedecian, skin, eye and general surgeon, dental surgeon, optometrist, physiotherapist, psychologist тАУ along with a pharmacist set up the camp in a convenient location easily accessible by villagers.
They conduct patient exams, and even specialized tests such as ECG, ultrasound, pulmonary function test, and blood test with top-of-the-line portable machines, as well as large-scale eye examinations, and dental checkups.
This is followed by dispensing high quality generic medicines and eyeglasses, free of charge. Some of the focus areas of the camps include: women's health issues, social issues such as female foeticide, children's physical exams, and illnesses of the elderly. The patients are then asked to follow-up in subsequent camps or at the Health Center.
The camps also raise awareness about the environment, health and hygiene, nutrition, importance of exercise and physical activity, HIV/AIDS, psychological health, and women's issues. Specialists also talk about the adverse effects of the commonly observed habit of smoking hukka. The villagers are then trained on how to continue the effort in their community.
Chaupal Marathon
Yearly rural marathon since 2011 only of its kind in India run between Bayanpur and Murthal villages of Sonipat, Haryana. Over 10000 participants between age 10 to 80 years across many states of North India come and participate in this event and thousands gather on track to encourage them. Indian sports person of international repute give away prizes. Each year the race has a social them like say no female feticide, say no to drugs, road safety, clean environment, healthy lifestyle, a educated and unified society, women empowerment etc
Chaupal Declamation Contest
Since 2016 the themes of Chaupal marathon are held for declamation contest across all the rural government schools of Sonipat and Jind districts.Hundreds of students from these schools enthusiastically participate and we plan to enlarge the contest to whole of Haryana.
