With Neurology-on-Wheels, Doctor Takes Free Epilepsy & Stroke Treatment to Rural Andhra |
Originally reported and written in March 2023, this story has been republished as part of our archival content.
Sometime in early 2008, Dr Bindu Menon was dropping her daughter to school when other parents and teaching faculty began crowding around her in the corridor, seeking advice on different neurological conditions. This wasn’t the first time it had happened to the neurologist serving as an associate professor at a medical college in Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh.
This was a common occurrence for the good doctor.
“While talking to these people, I found a lack of awareness about neurological conditions, as well as my inability to answer all their queries properly. So, I thought it would be advisable to create awareness among the public about neurological disorders because in general people feel that they are untreatable,” explains Dr Menon, who is currently serving as a professor and head of the neurology department at Apollo Specialty Hospitals in Nellore, in a conversation with The Better India.
“For example, once someone has a stroke, they believe that the patient is bedridden for life. Or that symptoms like back or neck pains are nothing to worry about. During my conversations with them, I also heard people treating epilepsy as a serious social stigma and saying individuals with that condition can’t get married or have a normal life, etc. These were some of the beliefs the general public had when I interacted with them on a non medical platform,” adds Dr Menon.
During her final year in Tirupathi, Dr Menon embarked on a journey towards raising awareness about neurological conditions among the public, starting with schools and colleges. Even after moving to Nellore later that year, she continued on this journey. So far, she has completed around 210 awareness campaigns, which includes schools, colleges and a myriad of different social organisations in the state.
But this isn’t all she has done.
Under the aegis of her non-profit Dr Bindu Menon Foundation, she has organised free treatment camps for hundreds of underprivileged patients with epilepsy, stroke and other conditions, while also pioneering a fascinating initiative called ‘Neurology on Wheels’.
Here, the celebrated neurologist from Kerala travels to deprived villages in the rural interiors of Nellore district with a team of volunteers to raise awareness about common neurological conditions, screen and treat them, and distribute free medication in certain cases.
“We have now organised more than 200 free medical camps across 44 villages through our Neurology on Wheels initiative. We have educated and screened around 12,000 people now. The number of patients we detected in these villages — who were not on treatment but received counselling, medication and referral to the nearest health centre from me — has been 140 for stroke, 105 for epilepsy, 361 for hypertension and 133 for diabetes,” claims Dr Menon.
Besides Neurology on Wheels, in 2016 she launched Epilepsy Help, an app which sends alerts to families of epileptic patients in emergencies like sudden seizures. During the peak of the pandemic, she also launched a Stroke Help app for patients unable to reach their doctors. These apps, however, need further work to align with the privacy norms of app stores.
Her foundation has also recently started the EDuWAND (Educating Women about Neurological Diseases) project with the goal to address both the burden of stroke for women and to leverage their role within the family. The EDuWAND project involves targeted education on stroke for women and........