Hospital is home, for this little, gutsy girl

BANGALORE: As she strolls around the Vani Vilas Hospital, chatting with the staff, and befriending patients, nobody disturbs the 14-year-old orphan girl Shobha. The hospital, after all, is her only home these days.
Brought to the city as a domestic help six years ago, Shobha was dumped at the hospital last year by her employers, after she was diagnosed with a heart ailment.
Given their limited resources, doctors at Vani Vilas did not know what to do for this very sick girl.
Finally, they rallied the hospital staff to pool in resources and to send Shobha to a private hospital. In July 2003, a heart valve replacement surgery, costing over Rs 89,000, was conducted on her.
When she recovered from the surgery, Shobha returned to working as a domestic help. But the burden of domestic chores on the back of her surgery was too much to handle, and she was soon deposited back at the hospital.
The girl, who hails from caretaker chief minister S.M. Krishna''s home town Somanahalli in Maddur taluk, sleeps on a bed in one of the paediatric wards, wears clothes provided by doctors, and now dreams of being educated — like them.
"My name is Shobha, actually Shweta, but I was re-named by the family I first worked for. My parents died when I was very young and it was my grandma who brought me up. She died three years ago," Shobha tell her sad story sitting on her hospital bed.
Her grandmother sent her to work because she herself had no means to look after her. "I don''t know of any relatives, my grandma did not mention any," she says.
The only family she has is the hospital staff. "I used to frequently fall ill and was always brought here for treatment. I know everybody around, they are my family," she says.
Doctors at the hospital now hope that Shobha will not have to return to working as a domestic help and that she can get the education she is dreaming of.
"She is a very popular girl here and has made friends all over. She deserves a better life," says Kishore Murthy, a post-graduate doctor on duty at the hospital.
"I want to stand on my own feet, I want to study. I cannot do that if I work," says the girl, who knows what it means to be part of the ever increasing, invisible, voiceless, domestic child work force in the cities.
To help Shwetha get a life, contact the head of paediatrics at Vani Vilas Hospital on 26709145.