On Wednesday, the 21st of August, we had visited enviro vigil which was located behind our hospital. There we had learnt about hospital waste management,  vermicomposting, and much more.

To get money by recycling waste is the mission of enviro vigil. The bio-medical waste of nearly six hundred hospitals in Thane city is disposed off using scientific methods.

 The baais, aayaas and those responsible for waste disposal in the hospital are taught to segregate the waste  in coloured bags of 3 different colours - yellow,  Blue and red.

Black bags
This bag is used for collecting dry waste material which is not infectious.  Materials like paper, plastics, cardboard boxes, and other dry waste generated in hospital office or in the wards are disposed in this bag. This is notBiomedical waste. This waste goes into the incinerating machine. The gases released through this machine are devoid of carbon thus making it environment friendly. The ash formed is used for landfilling. 

.Red bag:This bag is used for the disposal of plastics collected from OTs, ICUs and wards.
The plastic waste in red bags goes through segregation and shredding and then sent for recycling. 

.Yellow Bag:This bag is Used forhighly infectiousitems like pathological waste, human anatomical waste such as body parts, amputated parts/organs, tumors, placentas, aborted or dead fetuses,blood soaked cotton bandages, animal tissues, organs, carcasses etc.

Blue or White Opaque Bag:This bag is used for collecting the segregated metal sharps such as needles, blades, saws, scalpels and glass pieces.*.These bags must be puncture proof.*.A metal box or a plastic canister should be used for collecting the metal sharps*.It is strongly recommend that even metal sharpsand broken glass articles should be segregated.*.Broken glass sharps should be collected in blue/ white bags. They are emptied, treated with hypogloride acid and sent for recycling process.

Dr.Harganis the President, Dr.Walawalkar the General Secretary and Dr.Sanjay Joshi the Secretary officially started the Bio-Medical waste treatment unit on 1st March 2003. It was started with the help of Thane Muncipal Corporation.  The organization is also involved in projects related to conservation of the environment. The members conduct seminars, lectures and exhibitions at various levels to create public awareness.

A monthly magazine “Aaple Paryavarn” (our environment) is being published since 15thAugust 2004. The magazine highlights the various environmental issues, the need for environmental conservation and the activities of the organization to create awareness in public”. The subscriptions have exceeded the three thousand mark.  

“Paryavaran Shala” (Environment School) was started to create awareness amongst school children. Lectures are held at New English School at Ram Maruti Road in Thane west. Students from std VI to std VIII attend the school for two hours on every Saturday. Apart from lectures, the students also have outings, bird watching sessions, excursions etc. The students are felicitated and given certificates on 26th January, 2005. 

Vermi-composting takes place behind the office building where Bio-degradable waste from the canteen and the hostel is used to prepare manure. Part of the manure is used in gardening.  The remaining manure is sold in the market. 

Kagad Shilp or  paper craft Takes place where Old calendars collected from various companies, organization and public.  The papers are cut and sent in the Thane Mental Hospital. They get the paper bags done from the patients, and thus the mentally challenged also get a means of earning.

Enviro vigil occasionally takes up campaigns to avoid tree cutting for holi, use environment friendly colours for holi,  encourage rain-water harvesting, celebrate pollution-free and noise-free Diwali, etc.

We also visited a room on the first floor where there were hand made things such as toys, mugs, masks, etc. Being sold at affordable prices. They were painted with non toxic environment friendly paints.

We really enjoyed ourselves and wish that such visits keep happening again and again.

Trip to badlapur

      We had visited Badlapur on 31st August 2013. I had boarded the 8:40 AM train from Byculla as all of us had planned to eventually board that train as and when it came to the railway station nearest to our house. It was scheduled to reach Badlapur at 9:55 AM. I was made the treasurer of the batch.
      I had travelled by rickshaw with most other friends.... we had told him Aanganwaadi but he took us to Aaganwaadi, which was like far ahead from our actual destination! In Aaganwaadi, we were left at a school for young children. We visited the school and greeted the teacher and children.
     After a while, we realised that we were supposed to reach Aanganwaadi! We thought we would walk it up. On the way, we got into a truck as a free lift and reached our destination! I will never forget the awesome experience we had in that truck ride!
     We then met the rest of our friends at the Aanganwaadi Centre
     Theoretically, there is one Aanganwaadi worker for a population of 400 to 600 under the ICDS (INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SCHEME) The PHC we visited offered outreach services such as immunization, basic curative care services, and maternal and child health services. There was an elderly lady present, who was explaining to us in detail the way in which the PHC would take care of the children under it's reach.
      We were shown a vaccination record book where the names of the children under the care of that Aanganwaadi Centre were written in one column and the vaccines they had gotten in the subsequent columns. Every Child was made to take the appropriate vaccine at the appropriate time after birth. This was as per the national immunisation schedule. It thus included vaccines such as BCG, DPT, OPV, HBV, Measles, tetanus toxoid and Vitamin A.
      Malnutrition kills around 4 million children every year - 1 child every 8 seconds. Aanganwaadi workers try to solve this problem too. They weigh every child at regular intervals under their surveillance and plot their weight and age on a growth monitoring chart. The chart was conveniently divided into 3 regions - topmost was a Green area then Below it was a yellow one and even below that was a red area. The Green area signified that the child was receiving a good amount of nutrition, while the yellow area indicated moderate acute malnutrition and the red area indicated severe acute malnutrition. Which area the child fell in depended on his age-weight plotted in the graph... this made it easy to understand for the villagers. There was one more condition-the graph should go on ascending and not stay horizontal or descend - as both indicate malnutrition. Most of the graphs we had seen were horizontal or ascending slightly. There was a whole book filled with such graph pages.
     The lady also told us about a child with severe acute malnutrition who was brought there and how she went about saving the child. He was one of the children we had seen that day. We then heard each child sing, gave them sweets, thanked the people there and left.
     We also visited a centre for the mentally retarded. There were people of all ages. When people would eat together, there would be a few others who would really trouble others and so they were locked inside rooms all alone with a grill to see others. We also gave the people in charge food packets to distribute among the inmates.
    That way our trip ended. We really enjoyed and I shall always remember every moment of that trip!
     
    

Noise Pollution

     The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term noise as 'a sound or a series of sounds that is loud or unpleasant'. It is something no one would desire to hear all day. Noise pollution happens when noise goes above 80 decibels. Noise over 120 dB can cause hearing damage.
     All this being stated, I would like to quote what Mother Teresa had once said about noise....

"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is the friend of silence.  See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence.... We need silence to be able to touch souls." ~Mother Teresa

      The situation in my locality is completely different. There is always a lot of noise that one has to bear hearing all day and night. Sometimes, one can hear men fighting and screaming at each other,  sometimes we hear our tank getting filled, which itself is very noisy.
     Sometimes, the noise that beggars make - they walk armed with a mike in their hand, while their colleague (another beggar) holds the speaker. Then the beggar walks very slowly on the road, singing stupid, irritating songs. They actually recite 2 lines and repeat them over and over again, making sure that their speakers are set at full volume - such hypocrits! They have the cash to buy speakers and power them for full volume every Sunday but when it comes to begging, they pretend like they've got no cash.
     But all this is nothing compared to the noise cars make when they constantly go on and on honking without stopping - and not just one car, but one whole line of cars and bikes honking at each other continuously! That too every second of the day! How frustrating!
     It's actually not the car owners' fault. Neither is it that the road is too thin. In fact, it is one of the widest roads in Mumbai I've ever seen! It is the fault of the vendors who illegally sell bags, suitcases and fruits. They don't even belong to the city! They occupy the width of the road FIVE cars would easily fit in!! Twice the width of a car on the road goes in their handcarts (fruit vendor's handcart) that they sleep on. There are two rows of such handcarts on the road. As we go further on the road, we find that clothes vendors have also encroached upon the road in addition to the fruit vendors. This narrows the road even more. Another two rows of handcarts for selling fruits on two opposite sides of the road. And one more row to accomodate the bag vendors. So that, at any point of time, only one car can go on the road that is supposed to accommodate 6 cars if only those vendors were gotten rid of!
     On the road, vehicles ply in both directions, but with great difficulty, arguement and a desire never to drive on that road again. You can imagine how much of a hassle it gets when a bus goes through. In fact, cabs will never go on that road just because there is this kind of madness.
     The vendor business is illegal and so no one can blame the law for these hawkers. Municipal vans come everyday to snatch away whatever goods they can and shoo away the hawkers. But when the municipal vans leave at night, they somehow come to know and set up their bag shops and get their handcarts again - they buy handcarts probably in rent or they might be borrowing money from friends or they might be rich enough to buy new handcarts again and again - something drives these people to go on with their business.
     When they return, nobody dares to complain, because they try their best to find out who complained, and attack the poor guy. My aunt who lives further in the road, had once seen a poor man holding a pistol and running after another man and nobody on the road dared to do anything lest they get shot. Once a lady had complained about these hawkers and they all unitedly went and pounced on her somewhere - and she was nowhere to be seen again. These hawkers are such perverts - while walking on the road if they happen to see a lady walking in the opposite direction they will purposely  go and dash their shoulder against the lady - and say that they did it by mistake.
      When we were small, our neighbours had a funny way of getting rid of noise made by beggars, who used to come much, much more often at that time. They would fill balloons with cold water, aim and throw it at beggars holding mikes through their window. If the shot missed, they would tell the victims to call that beggar. The beggars would panic in shock for a moment, and then the neighbours used to call their mother who would shout at the hawkers in a really insulting manner and make them leave quietly. It used to be such a relief during exams when their begging using mikes at FULL volume would disturb us a lot. But sadly, our neighbours grew up. They are not children any more, so they don't throw water balloons at beggars. But their aim used to be perfect. They would almost always be able to land the balloon on the slow-walking beggar.
     Yeah... and so the beggars became a rarity nowadays. But the vendors haven't disappeared as yet. The vendors are like those really adamant flies. When we try to shoo the fly away, it won't go away easily. But then when it finally flies away, as soon as we go away, it comes back to the same spot we shooed it away from. And no one is relieved by the fact that house flies have a life span of a month - because when they die, their children take over and harass us.
     I just wish that those hawkers give us a break and go away to find some other job. But this hope seems impossible. It seems like as if one of the widest roads in Mumbai will never be able to accommodate vehicles to it's full capacity ever. It is not like there are few vehicles on that road. A lot of vehicles keep going on the road every moment. The road is always full of traffic and people honking at and abusing each other when actually the vendors are at fault. To save their necks, the vendors take part in the fight too and abuse the one who seems less frightening, because they want to win the fight.
     And no, don't ever do the mistake of thinking the vendors are doing us a big favour by selling their goods. They keep very high prices for their fake, low quality goods. So no one ever buys goods from them. They are always seen sitting near their handcart doing nothing. It also spoils the whole scenery. Plus, they smoke, so the air gets polluted. They also chew tobacco and spit on the road.
     As I had mentioned in my earlier post, people in our building get irritated and leave their flats in one month to live in a more peaceful, comfortable environment. Most of the occupants of our building are on rent... they too will leave the place after some time.... so I get to see new faces every month. So none of them care about the detoriating building management. In fact, in the building meetings, these people on rent make up the majority. And they say 'Yes' to whatever selfish decisions the self-appointed manager makes as they know that they won't have to stay in the building for long. But since the majority has agreed, the decision is considered final.
     But then it is said,  " If you can't get rid of something, learn to live with it." This is what we are practising. It is really sad, but we have no other choice. There is a lot of noise in the area despite a hospital being on the same road!!
    

T.S. of brain at different levels

   The brain is extensively studied using cut sections of the brain at different levels. This helps us easily understand the relations of varied structures such as nuclei, ventricles, etc. to one another.
   This study of brain at various levels also helps interpret CT Scan reports as we can see the normal structure of the ventricles or which nuclei and tracts are affected by a particular lesion.
   It also makes the study of the brain very systematic and comprehensible. I hope that you, the readers found all this information useful. :)

T.S. of Spinal cord

   The spinal cord is a tube like structure protected in the vertebral column. It does not show any cranial nerve nuclei but very important tracts pass through it.
   You will be surprised to learn that the spinal cord is less than a finger in thickness. Yet it is able to carry out it's functions perfectly. The spinal cord, if injured, can have serious consequences. An example of such serious consequences is sciatica.
   The spinal cord at different levels shows such considerable differences that even looking at an H&E ( hematoxylin and eosin ) stained slide of the spinal cord without the aid of a microscope, seeing the shape of the inner grey matter and the size of the oval, one can easily judge whether the section was taken at the cervical, thoracic, lumbar or sacral level.
   I would like to apologise again for the short forms used, but their long forms are -
HypoS=Hypothalamo Spinal
PSC=Posterior Spino Cerebellar
ASC=Anterior Spino Cerebellar
LST=Lateral Spino Thalamic
SO=Spino Olivary
AST=Ascending Spino Thalamic
LReS=Lateral Reticulo Spinal
MReS=Medial Reticulo Spinal
LCS=Lateral Cortico Spinal
RS= Reticulo Spinal
OS=Olivio Spinal
VS=Vestibulo Spinal
TS=Tecto Spinal
ACS=Anterior Cortico Spinal

T.S. of Midbrain

   The midbrain is the most cranial part of the brainstem.  It is divided into 2 parts - tectum and cerebral peduncle.
   The tectum is made up of the superior and inferior colliculi. The superior colliculi are involved in visual reflexes whole the inferior colliculi are involved in auditory reflexes.
   The cerebral peduncles are divided into the following, going from anterior to posterior - CST (mnemonic), i.e., crus cerebri, substantia nigra and tegmentum. The decrease in dopamine in the substantia nigra is known to cause Parkinson's Disease.
   The diagram shows a section of the midbrain at the level of the superior colliculus. I am again really sorry for my abbreviations.... here is their full form -
RF=Reticular Formation
M,T,S=Medial, Trigeminal,  Spinal lemniscus
MLB=Medial Longitudinal Bundle
TD=Tegmental Decussation

T.S. of Pons Varolli

   The pons varolli lies just cranial to the medulla oblongata. It is about an inch long.
    In section the pons shows cerebellar peduncles which connect the cerebellum to the pons and midbrain. The pons contains many important cranial neve nuclei. It also contains the pneumotaxic centre.
   The pneumotaxic center mediates the change from inspiration to expiration. You must be wondering : How does the pneumotaxic centre perform this function? Well, the process is really simple. The diaphragm is the main muscle that causes inspiration. It is a dome - shaped muscle that lies attached to the inner surfaces of the lower ribs. When it contacts, the summit of the dome is pulled downwards, thus increasing the size of the thoracic cavity. Thus the bases of the lungs expand downwards and they expand. Normally the diaphragm summit descends by around 1.5 cm in quiet breathing but can descend upto 7cm in deep breathing. The diaphragm is supplied by the phrenic nerve.
   This pneumotaxic centre decreases the strength of signals (in the form of action potentials) in the phrenic nerve. Thus, the diaphragm contracts to a lesser extent, meaning that it relaxes and thus mediates expiration. Thus, you're question is answered. :)
   The sections are taken at the levels of facial colliculus and trigeminal nerve (upper pons). I am really sorry about the short forms! Here are their full forms though -
ICP=Inferior Cerebellar Peduncle
MCP=Middle Cerebellar Peduncle
LST=Lateral Spino Thalamic
Roman numerals=number of the cranial nerve
SON=Superior Olivary Nucleus
LL=Lateral Lemniscus
SSN=Superior Sensory Nucleus
MLB=Medial Longitudinal Bundle
TS=Tecto Spinal
RS=Reticulo Spinal
SCP=Superior Cerebellar Peduncle
MTSL ( mnemonic  because it looks like MTNL)
   =Medial, Trigeminal, Spinal and Lateral lemniscus
MS=superior sensory nucleus of trigeminal nerve
M=Mesencephalic nucleus of trigeminal nerve
TzBody=Trapezoid Body