News Letter 2019

October/ November 2019 Idhayangal Charitable Trust newsletter

Dear Contributor/ Wellwisher,
Warm regards from the desk of Idhayangal Charitable Trust. We wish all of you and your family a great Diwali. We have made immense progress over the last 2 months. Our children's diabetes control has improved remarkably due to our team's efforts and your support. Data shows that the 3-month average of most children supported by the trust has come down from around 14-15 % to around 7 %. This would translate into a huge reduction in kidney failures and blindness and allow them to lead a normal healthy life. In this newsletter, we have the following
1. Our Diwali celebrations
2. Breaking socio-economic barriers in Diabetes Technologies
3. The humbling story of Papammal and her pension

Our Diwali celebrations (2019)

It was a heart-warming Diwali celebration with our Trust's children on 20th October. Idhayangal Team was peaceful to have in our midst families of patients who had unfortunately lost their lives last year. Manikandan's dad and his sister along with Satyapraksh's family joined our Diwali get together. It was a time to recollect memories, however painful it was, we were determined not to forget such families and ensure that they were a part of our Idhayangal's family. Each child had a beautiful dress and came to stage to speak confidently of their future plans. This was followed by songs, dances and firecrackers. Many thanks for all our Idhayangal contributors who have made it possible for these families to gain the confidence and do well in their lives. Photos below.

Breaking Socioeconomic barriers in Diabetes Technologies

Idhayangal Charitable Trust is proud to attach, along with this mail, our recent paper which was accepted in the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism. We have broken a glass ceiling by penetrating insulin pump technologies to the poorest of the poor. This pilot study on 16 children shows that underprivileged rural children can handle insulin pump technology that leads to excellent glucose control, reduction in hospitalisations, improved quality of life and hopefully reductions in kidney failures and blindness. Since this paper, we now have 52 underprivileged children on insulin pump therapy. Each pump costs around 1.5 lacs with consumables of around Rs 8000 per annum. This device is life changing for children on 4 times a day insulin. We wish to thank all our contributors and well wishers who made such things possible. We are confident that Idhayangal Charitable Trust has the maximum number of underprivileged unaffordable rural children on such lifesaving technology in the world. Many more children are on the waiting list, we sincerely request our contributors to help us with this programme (DONATE AN INSULIN PUMP, CHANGE A CHILD'S LIFE FOREVER). We are positive that this programme will change the landscape of underprivileged children with Type 1 diabetes children in our State. We are also actively lobbying the Government to adopt this scheme.

Humbling story of Papammal and her pension

Papammal, a 70 yeal old lady, is a long standing patient of mine, she comes along with her husband all the time. She had not been to school; her whole world revolves around her husband and house. It's been sometime since I had seen her. She suddenly popped into my OP Clinic recently. After general niceties, she started to have tears rolling down her eyes, her husband had died last year and that's the reason for her non-attendance. “Doctor, I don't know what to do, my whole life was my husband, now I am at a complete loss, I just wanted to see you and cry, so that I can feel a bit better. As we were speaking, her eyes fixed on the photograph hanging on my room with our Idhayangal children. She enquired about it, took some Idhayangal leaflets from my desk and left. In the evening I had a phone call from her saying that she had transferred Rs 25,000 from her husband's pension amount for the children. For a lady who had not left her house, she had gone to the bank all by herself, pestered the bank staff to help her with the bank transfer and was calling anxiously from the bank to ensure that the money was transferred. What a humbling effort by this gem of a lady. Idhayangal Charitable Trust is in great hands and hearts with people like Papammal. We wish to thank the office bearers and members of Rotary Club of Coimbatore Central, Kovaipudur and Rotary Club Galaxy for their support in recent times. Wishing you all a happy Diwali, may God bless all of you with health, wealth and peace Dr.Krishnan Swaminathan, On behalf of all our children and Team

Idhayangal NEWSLETTER JUNE JULY 2019

Dear Contributor/ Well-wisher,
It gives immense pleasure in sending us this update from our desk. It has been a fruitful 2 months for Idhayangal. Our Project Kathir has made a great start with 12 children from the underprivileged category able to get not only the insulin pumps but also consumables for three years, which gives them enough time to settle down. In addition, 25 children are supported with the best insulins through this programme. Thanks is a small word for Rotary Club of Coimbatore Central, KMCH and all our contributors for making this happen. In this newsletter, we are sharing details of the advanced insulin pump refresher course for the kids, the story of Arjun's kiss, our insurance cover now reaching 50 children with type 1 diabetes and many more. Once again, thanks for your continued support to our causes.

INSULIN PUMP REFRESHER COURSE FOR OUR CHILDREN

Idhayangal Charitable Trust organised a day's course for 40 underprivileged children on insulin pumps on 7th July 2019. Many of these children had major admissions with diabetic coma pre-insulin pumps with poor insight into their diabetes. It was a complete joy to watch these children doing extremely well on insulin pumps. Most of their glucose levels were well under control between 100-200 mgs/dl (was 500-600 mgs/dl) pre-pump, were doing really well with their studies and more importantly wereconfident of their future and life due to all your support and contributions. It was a pleasure to see Ramya Bharathi, who came to our emergency with impending cardiac arrest just a few months ago back to her normal cheerful self. Children as far as Tirunelveli, Mayiladuthurai came for this course and learnt a lot from each other experiences. Below is the photo of children with our team, as the course finished. Idhayangal thanks all the contributors for enabling us to change the lives of these deserving children. God bless this child with type 1 diabetes who had come from the jaws of death courtesy of God and health insurance cover. She is receiving the bravery award from Dr. Nalla G Palaniswami for her immense mental strength in the face of severe adversity in ICU

The Story of Arjun's kiss

Arjun was one of the reasons for starting Idhayangal. This is a poor boy who was given up in Madurai and advised to take him home after a severe diabetic coma due to type 1 diabetes. He was finally saved after a battle on exactly his birthday, which we celebrated in ICU about 6 years ago. Arjun had a severe intercurrent illness last week and his mother brought him to Coimbatore from Madurai just having absolute faith in our team. He had a brief admission in our hospital and improved dramatically. He is one of the children whom we are supporting with studies, insulin and health insurance cover. On the day of discharge, the mother and son were standing uncomfortably in my OP requesting a small favour. All Arjun wanted to do was to give me a hug and kiss for all the help Idhayangal is doing for him and his family. Tears were streaming down my eyes in a busy OPD and none had a clue as to why? It was a emotional moment to have this little boy hug me and plant a kiss on my cheeks, which no amount of money can equate. With another 30 patients waiting, all the tiredness disappeared and this little boy made my day. This simple gesture has motivated all our team to do better for these children for years to come.

Health Insurance Cover: Reaching the 50 mark

We are immensely thankful to all our Contributors, well wishers and Star health team for getting us to reach the 50 mark for a Rs 2 lac cover for underprivileged children with type 1 diabetes (1 crore worth of cover for this annum). This has given a great peace of mind to all our families and has been life saving for the past one and half years since we started this scheme. We have another 50 children to enrol but doing this on a case by case basis, based on priorities. Our dream is to cover every single child for an unexpected admission, which can break families.

Future plans

We still have around 20 children on the waitlist for insulin pumps, 120 children are getting supported as of now and the numbers are increasing every month. Kindly pass on the message

Adopt one child for Rs 10,000/ annum for your family's occasions like birthdays, anniversaries Support one pump for 1 child at a cost of Rs 1.5 lacs

We are extremely humbled by all your support and contributions; we will keep in touch in a couple of months
Warm Regards
Dr. Krishnan Swaminathan on behalf of Idhayangal Team

Dear Contributor/ Well wisher

Warm Regards from Idhayangal Charitable Trust.
Firstly, many thanks for your thoughts and considerations to give a helping hand to our deserving children with Type 1 diabetes. We are deeply humbled as there are many deserving causes in India and still you thought of us. With your help, we currently support 50 poor children with Type 1 diabetes in absolute need of help
We wish to give news and updates every 2 months, hope this gives you a flavour of how your contributions make a difference to poor children with Type 1 diabetes.