MEDICAL COVERAGE FOR WIDOWS & THEIR CHILDREN IN VILLAGES   

Poor Widows With Their Children

In the cultural ethos of India, the widows have always been suffering. As long as the joint family system existed, there was some social, medical and financial cover for them, but since the breaking down of this system the condition of these women has been horrifying to say the least. Consequently their children now suffer equally or more than their mothers. 

Since the rural women are mostly uneducated and the financial cover usually exists only during the life of the husband, basic existence becomes difficult. The main problem is that land holdings are very small, if they have any land as their share and then it is not enough to sustain them. 

With little or no income after the the death of their husbands, plus with the load of children on their shoulders, it is nothing short of mental and physical trauma from which they are not able to come out for the rest of their lives.

From the experiences gained while running ABLE Hospital over a period of more than 15 years, it has been observed by us that most of the widows are highly undernourished, have low hemoglobin counts, and are by and large are thin and skinny. Their basic existence is dependent upon the manual labor they are able to put in during the harvesting season plus a meager widows' pension of Rs. 350.00 ($9.00) per month. 

During the course of running ABLE hospital, we have come across many cases of widows where they died because they did not have even the minimum amount needed for operations which were badly required by them. They could have been saved if only they had a little medical cover like the one ABLE has implemented since 2006. Had they lived, their children would not have become orphans. Now these children are being looked after by ABLE in their respective villages. 

It is with this background that we are trying to give medical cover to the widows in the villages so that we can save them from death because of simple diseases which can be avoided if they can approach a good hospital where they do not have to pay anything and where they have a right to avail the facilities. 

The project which has been evolved in consultation with some insurance people  is very simple. ABLE charges 50 paise per day from each one i.e. Rs 180.00 i.e. $4.00 per year. ABLE puts in nearly Rs. 4.00 per day i.e. Rs 1400.00 OR $40.00 approx annually which can provide them comprehensive medical cover up to Rs 25,000.00 i.e. $600.00, without any exclusion clause which is just about sufficient because ABLE Hospital, being a social organization has very low overhead costs

At present their are nearly 250 widows under medical cover with ABLE Hospital and efforts are being made to increase the number to about 100 widows. To continue to support 1000 widows and increase their number to 2000 their would be a minimum need for philanthropic people to come forward to support this cause because EVERY POSSIBLE DEATH OF A WIDOW CREATES ORPHANS AND A GIRL ORPHAN IS AT TREMENDOUS RISK OF EITHER GETTING IN TO A CHILD MARRIAGE OR BEING TRAFFICKED.

To be useful to the worst sufferers of our nation, we must try to raise resources so that we can cover all the widows in the rural areas to begin with and subsequently from nearby towns as well. We need to subsidize, on an average, about $20.00 for each widow per year to give good medical aid to those whose lives cannot be saved for want of that money. For this we are dreaming to have the support of 1,000 good people donating $10.00 to $15.00 per month ($120 to $180 per year) on a regular basis...