Sujata had a motorbike accident where her feet got stuck inside the motorbike wheel rendering her unable to use her right foot. When she visited the government hospital, the wound was so bad, that the doctors feared that she might need amputation.
Sujata lives in Kolkata station slum where our street medicine operates. She visited the doctor, and regular basic wound dressings were started after an initial checkup.
After a few months of regular care, her wounds started to heal. But it was still taking too long.
“We were thinking about how we can help patients with difficult wounds like this,” said Santanu, the Clinical Manager at Calcutta Rescue. “Then we got to know about advanced wound care dressings.”
The suggestion was proposed by Dr Moona Banerji, our long-term medical volunteer and clinical advisor from the UK support group who volunteered in Kolkata from September to December 2024.
“Advanced wound dressings use materials different than the basic wound care dressings. The material is made of silicon and IS foam based which is more comfortable for the patients and helps to prevent infections.” said Dr Moona, “Usually chronic wounds tend to dry up thus making it difficult to heal it. Still, this wound care dressing material helps to hydrate the wound area which becomes much easier to treat.” she added.
“We have launched this wound care for now as a pilot project on only a few patients who have severe wounds. And we can see the progress. These materials are helping with faster healing time and they also require to be changed once a week when our normal dressings need to be changed thrice or four times a week.” said Santanu.
Samir is a patient of Nimtala Clinic, our special wound care clinic, who has also benefitted from the advanced wound dressing support. He said he noticed a lot of improvement already.
If this pilot project becomes a full-blown success the chances are we will apply this wound care to all of our wound patients.
Sujata is very happy with the wound care, “My right foot is healing well. I thought I could never walk again but now I am delighted with my treatment.”
