Lifeline Express: Journey From Despair to Hope

On 24th May, a team of dedicated Rotarians, consisting of Preeti & Ratan Tankha, Kishor Kher, Vasant Manohar, Dhananjaya Mehta, Paul George, Pervin Jehangir, Biba and myself, drove to Palghar railway station along with Rtn Akhtarali Tobaccowala to witness the closing ceremony of his foundation’s unique hospitalon- wheels, aptly called the Lifeline Express. This ceremony was graced by the presence of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and many other dignitaries.

The Lifeline Express (LLE), which was commissioned in 1991, has been serving the underprivileged and physically challenged people of this country by travelling to different parts of the country and surgically correcting various physical disabilities of all the people within a 5-km radius.

The surgeries mainly performed on this fully-equipped hospital-train are (i) Cataract removal and intra-ocular lens implants (ii) Ear surgeries to correct deafness (iii) Polio corrective surgeries and fitting of callipers and (iv) Cleft-lip correction. They are done with the services of doctors, surgeons and paramedical staff who volunteer their services to the train over a span of 3-5 days. (Please read detailed account of this by Dr Kekoo Kavarana on page 2. Kekoo served on LLE’s project at Manmad, along with Dr Rumi Jehangir, Dr Hoshung Mobedji and late Dr Narain Chhabria, and has many sweet memories of those unique days of service.)

LLE identifies and serves patients in need of surgery by means of a diagnostic mobile clinic, a minivan fitted with a complete set of equipment for testing vision and hearing. This minivan travels to the interiors of nearby villages where the train is unable to reach, and also spreads health awareness among schoolchildren and their parents and distributes medicines among the needy.

Over the last 15 years, LLE has travelled to 92 locations to perform its mission of mercy. The closing ceremony held on Thursday 24th May, marked the end of this pioneering vehicle of mercy, which was launched with three wooden bogies donated in 1991 by the Union Railway Minister George Fernandes, thanks to the painstaking efforts of Zelma Lazarus, Impact India Foundation’s CEO.

This travelling hospital will now permanently come to rest at a location decided by the government, and carry on serving the people as a hospital. However, in its place, a brand-new train with five bogies will be commissioned, thanks to the personal intervention of Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who has sponsored many LLE projects in various parts of the country through the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. This new train will have 60% more capacity for carrying out surgeries.

There are many famous trains in the world such as the Orient Express. But the Lifeline Express is a train that has taken thousands of underprivileged Indians on a journey from despair to hope, and helped make previously helpless people productive and selfsupporting members of society.

On behalf of the Rotary Club of Bombay, I heartily congratulate Rtn Akhtarali Tobaccowala, Zelma Lazarus and the Impact India team for this ongoing endeavour in serving humanity. It is truly a nation-building effort!