Valerie Cassity
Special to the Sun

At 4 a.m. on Jan. 27, just hours after being honored as the KRV Woman of the Year, Dr. Holly Spohn-Gross boarded an airplane bound for India, where she spent ten days working on behalf of the Rotary Club to administer polio vaccinations to countless children in the face of extreme poverty and pollution. She has returned home changed by the experience, seeking a way to help the people she met there in a concrete way that eludes her.

One of four polio hot spots in the world, along with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria, India’s population of 1.25 billion people makes it nearly impossible to eradicate the crippling, debilitating disease. Rotary International is trying to achieve the impossible, though, through it’s PolioPlus program, which sends teams of volunteers to these nations affected by Polio to not only administer vaccinations but to encourage people fighting to eradicate the disease on the front lines to continue their efforts.

Dr. Holly Spohn-Gross administers an oral polio vaccine to a child in India where she worked on behalf of Rotary International through its PolioPlus program.

Polio is a disease with three types that is transferred through water and poor hygiene that affects the muscular system and causes severe paralysis.  Oral polio vaccines are given repeatedly to Indian children in hopes to immunize them, but a major problem with these vaccinations is the dysentery and the lack of absorption; these children have chronic diarrhea and can not absorb much. Some of the children Spohn-Gross vaccinated had been vaccinated four years in a row several times a year and they are still not immunized.  This is partially because the water systems in India are a hazard.  There are open sewers in which the people drink from, clean their clothes in, wash and bath in, and of course drink from.  Each day Spohn-Gross says she saw people digging the raw sewage out of the troughs and putting it on the street so that the water could flow more freely.  The wells that they drink from are only 7-10 feet deep so everything percolates into the same lines.  “Basic skills like washing hands and proper nutrition are issues.  Furthermore, they are illiterate and do not understand these basic concepts.  Ninety percent of women in the rural villages are illiterate and these are their teachers.  Most do not attend school,” explained Spohn-Gross, “Cattle are considered sacred and they live inside their homes with them.  That means that their feces are also part of that water system.”

When she arrived in India, Spohn-Gross, and the team of 17 she accompanied, had several press conferences awaiting them in Dehli, which put them on the front page of many newspapers that week. They then visited the polio ward of St. Stephen’s Children’s Hospital, which was an eye-opening experience for everyone on the team about the harsh reality of the effects of polio, which was eradicated in the U.S. in 1954. “Children lay with bent bones and contractures so great that they can no longer stand up, walk, or take care of themselves.  There are many 18 year old girls that are brought here by their fathers in hopes to “fix them” so they can get them married.  Remember this is a caste system here.  The girls are considered burdens because they have to throw a wedding and impress the husband’s family.  If the dowry is not pleasing enough then there are what they call “kitchen fires,” where they burn the women’s face with kerosene and then throw them out as outcasts or untouchables.  This still happens but the Indian people do not like to discuss it,” Dr. Spohn-Gross wrote in her reflections of her trip.

Next was National Immunization Day (NID), a three-day event which began on Feb. 1 with booths where children are taken in their local areas and then a seven day follow-up where they went into the homes of children who could not get to the booths. From Delhi, Spohn-Gross traveled to Bijnor, a small rural town by Indian standards of 1 million people, which is not even big enough to be on the map there.   “[The Indians say] that they think we have too much space and laugh.  Here there is no personal space.  Everyone is crowded up against you.  The smells are crazy too.  The pollution is very bad here.  There are already some of us with breathing issues going on,” wrote Dr. Spohn-Gross.

Traveling in India was an eye-opening experience for Spohn-Gross, and she says that she has returned forever changed. The poverty, pollution, over-population, and treatment of the people has left her feeling that something must be done. Famous Indian Mahatma Gandhi said “You must be the change you want to see in the world,” an idiom that Spohn-Gross has taken to heart in many ways. She hopes that her journey will inspire others to be the change in whatever way they can, and is haunted by memories of India. In her final entry after her return home, Spohn-Gross questions what she can do to improve conditions there: I must bring awareness to this life-changing experience, for this experience was certainly not about me, it was about motivating others to reach out. India has changed me; I can no longer turn a blind eye to third world poverty and their problems - they are humans and this is a humanitarian crisis. I pray that my experience will move others to do more; if we could all just do more this world would be a better place. I feel such a strong presence right now. Surrounding me. Filling me.  Strengthening me. It is calling me... No... begging me to do more. India’s whisper that was once heard off in the distance is now a deafening roar calling me...”do not forget me or my people.” I do not know the path I need to travel, only that I must take the next step.  I must stay open and aware of the opportunities that are before me.  It is not about having the solution or even a solution.  It is about being open to the possibilities.

Spohn-Gross hopes that her experience will inspire others to do what must be done to assist third-world countries in improving their conditions. She implores those who read her story to do something, anything, to help make the world a better place. “For me, it is about being a physician and what that requires.  Being a physician is a privilege with a lot of responsibilities.  It is not just an occupation but a vocation.  Much is asked of us because of the kind of profession we have chosen.  I must do more and I must rally my colleagues into doing more too.  Yes, even in the midst of all the challenges we face here in the United States with providing healthcare I want to raise the bar and ask each one of my colleagues to continue to reach out, join a Rotary club, get involved, and volunteer your services in missionary work, community projects. When you give, truly give, you have found the secret in life.”