Army Doctor, who treated lakhs of tribals for sickle cell anaemia, to attend President's 'At Home Reception'
Upon investigation, Dr Uday discovered that the girls were from a remote village, Shahada, in Nandurbar district, over 500 kilometres from Pune. They came to a govt hospital in Pune when their conditions were worse due to a lack of appropriate treatment in their home district.
This troubling revelation prompted Colonel Uday to take action. Guided by the motto of the Armed Forces Medical Services, "Sarve Santu Niramaya" (Let all be free from disease and disability), he went to the village with six final-year MBBS students and four postgraduate students from AFMC.
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He first conducted health check-ups for over 150 tribals aged 6 to 15 and found that their health conditions made them genetically prone to the disease. This drive gave him a glimpse of the severity of the issue.
Given the alarming situation in the village, AFMC approached the Nandurbar district administration to carry out extensive medical screenings in tribal villages across remote tehsils.
To facilitate this large-scale initiative, AFMC established a satellite centre equipped with advanced testing kits and machines with Col Uday to lead the operations.
After receiving approval from the district administration, Dr Uday and his team launched their "mission" in the district.
"As part of the mission, 346,107 individuals from the district were screened for sickle cell disorder. Of these, on-site confirmatory testing via capillary zone electrophoresis was conducted for 161,400 tribals, including 130,483 students from 646 schools and colleges, and 19,082 door-to-door tests were conducted across 284 villages," Dr Uday told TOI.
Additionally, 9,399 patients were screened at healthcare facilities, including primary health centres, rural hospitals, and district hospitals, along with 2,436 pregnant women, he said.
Alongside sickle cell screening, the outreach programme also screened 151,000 tribal individuals for anaemia as part of the 'Anaemia Mukt Bharat' initiative. As part of the Tribal Health Initiative, non-communicable disease screenings were conducted, with 8,527 tribals screened for multiple myeloma (a type of blood cancer), 8,464 for diabetes through HbA1C testing, and 10,024 for thyroid dysfunction, said AFMC doctors.
As a long-term measure, Dr Uday developed an indigenously built hybrid application, 'care4sickle.in', for monitoring sickle cell disease, providing marriage counselling, and ensuring long-term follow-up for patients. Lauding Dr Uday and AFMC's efforts, the then-collector of Nandurbar district, Manisha Khatri, told TOI, "Had the AFMC and Dr Uday not stepped in, we would not have recognised the severity of the issue.
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"We have prepared a comprehensive health report on the disease and submitted it to the state govt. The report includes several short and long-term measures that will be implemented over the years to mitigate the disease. Long-term strategies need to be developed on the ground to break the genetic transmission of the disease in the district."
On August 2, Dr Uday received an official invitation from the President's office to attend the 'At Home Reception' at Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre on the occasion of Independence Day.
He, along with three other distinguished doctors from the country, will attend the function.
"It is a great honour to receive an invitation from the supreme commander of the armed forces. This recognition is a result of the sincere efforts and hard work of my students and the support of my seniors," said Dr Uday, who now heads the Department of Medical Research at AFMC.
"We are determined to take this mission to the next stage, and our work continues. This recognition will certainly boost our morale to care for the people in the remote corners of the country," he added.
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