News from the Rotary Doctor Bank

Issue no 2, 1999 -- English edition -- home

Page: -- Contents -- 1, (2), 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

• Now we start with Doctor Bank Allowance! -- editorial
• Wells need long planning
• Large donations
• Research discovery -- Water for Life through sun

Now we start with Doctor Bank Allowance!

We say no too often

Picture:

Governor Kjell-Åke Åkesson (to left) in Rotary District 2390, Hörby, Sweden, hands over to the Doctor Bank chairperson Lars Braw two bottles containing 2330 Crowns collected during the district consultation meeting.

We will tell it like it is: the Doctor Bank says NO to far too much. Says no? Yes, that's right. Far too many ask us for help. Or better put: There are more doctors than ever prepared to go out with only compensation for travel and lodging - but for everything to work, we need coordinators, we need jeeps, we need medical equipment, and we need local workers. For all this we need better financing. For this reason we start with the Doctor Bank Allowance.

Here is how simple it is: Buy a bottle of mineral water or other drink, in 1, 1½, or 2 litre sized plastic bottle. Drink until empty, replace the label with a new one with the text Doctor Bank Allowance.

Each Rotary club in our Nordic countries places such a bottle on the table where the Rotary meals are paid. Let it from time to time also make the rounds in the club.

Why only clubs? Children get an allowance - let the Doctor Bank have an allowance. Therefore, put a bottle like this on the kitchen table at home.

In the bottle you can put coins, and of course bills. When the bottle is full, empty it and deposit the money in a Doctor Bank account, e.g. postal giro 900472-2.

I have myself tried the bottle at several locations:

• Travellers Club in Malmö - 1080 Crowns
• District consultation in Hörby - 2330 Crowns
• Gislaved Rotary Club - 2730 Crowns (along with club donations of 10,000 Crowns)
• Doctor Convention in Holsbybrunn - 1570 Crowns

The idea of "money bottles" comes from the Swedish Inner Wheel President Erna Prior, from Lund. The participants at a conference in District 259 filled a bottle with 1150 Crowns.

Now I put the bottle on a table at home and put in the Doctor Bank allowance every week, at least a "tenner" (over a US dollar).

If - or when! - all 67,000 Nordic Rotarians do this, then we no longer need say no to all who ask for a jeep-doctor relay, or eye specialists, surgeons, orthopaedists, dentists and ear specialists, and we can really say that with this small, seemingly insignificant gift that we hardly notice, we SAVE MANY PEOPLE'S LIVES, cure and prevent disease for hundreds of thousands.

- LARS BRAW -

Back to top

Wells need long planning

"The wells that the Doctor Bank plans at all the clinics where jeep-doctors work need proper planning - and they take time to set up."

This fact is emphasized by the Doctor Bank Coordinator in West Kenya, Erik Hoel. He was recently invited to a meeting in the Homa Bay region by Lake Victoria, where the Doctor Bank has a jeep-doctor relay. No clean water is available at the clinics there.

"I was very well received by representatives from the authorities and by the people in the villages," he reports. "First must be studied with modern instruments if there is water also during the dry season, Nov 15 - Feb 15. After this, a local water committee is set up, which will also be responsible for the digging. We obtain a hand pump so that water seepage during the digging can be pumped away. Then we also bring in the concrete well rings.

"It can in other words take a rather long time before a well is ready. That clean water prevents many diseases is known by the people, who hope that the Doctor Bank can raise funding for a well at every clinic to begin with."

In "Masailand", two wells are ready, but the problems are there greater, because the ground water is found first more than 100 metres down. The work continues there as well, from this autumn led by Bengt Sundh, New Life Mission.

Back to top

Large donations

Africa evenings with African food and music often mean large donations to the Doctor Bank. The Lund Dalby Rotary Club could after one such evening, together with the athletics association Anders Pågar, hand over a cheque for 25,000 Crowns, intended for a well in Kenya.

Back to top

Research discovery

Water for Life through sun

This we know: Millions of children in developing countries suffer recurring diarrhoeas because they drink polluted water.

Many die, unnecessarily. One of the Doctor Bank's jeep-doctors, Birgitta Josefsson, wrote in her report: "Why not instead of medicine give them pure water!" The Rotary Doctor Bank with "Water for Life" is already an established term, and now cash in a bottle is transformed into just Water for Life…

We also know that the sun's ultraviolet rays kill bacteria in water, a discovery made in India already 2000 years ago and later refined in our times. The initiative came from Professor Aftim Acra at the American University in Beirut 1985. Since then, research has continued. The results have been published in a number of medical and technical publications, e.g. the British The Lancet, and the Swiss Waterlines. A large number of tests have been performed in tropical countries, which now confirm that polluted water from lakes, rivers and ponds becomes safe to drink if it is left to stand in the sun for seven hours in transparent plastic bottles.