...& on sunday an opportunity to travel!

... we arranged for an early start and decided to take it easy and go to Top Slit and Parambikulam wildlife reserve.... where there are about 1700 tigers...

Part of the team on the sunday day out

Benjamin, Sverre, Alex, Vasek, Amanda... Gastón & I with professor

On the way to the reserve we stopped at Arulmigu Masani Amman Anaimalai temple:

in temple, goddess Arulmigu Masani Amman is the presiding deity

Then we arrived to Top Slit and after lunch went, over the border, to Kerala, for a 3 ride to hopefully see some wild animals the Parambikulam wild life reserve is well known for.

We were lucky and did see wild indian elephants, monkeys, marsh crocodiles, gaurs, sloth bears, sambar deer ... the countryside was worth while because the Parambikulam wildlife sanctuary lies in the southern part of the Western Ghat, between the Anamalai hills and Nelliampathy hills.  We saw the highest peak,  Karimala (1438m), and two out of the three man-made reservoirs namely Parambikulam, Thunacadavu and Peruvaripalla.

Team at a sight seeing spot

Wild elephants

...as usual more pictures can be seen in my album store

Tomorrow I will write about today's great Golu experience at Dr, Ramani house

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...Statement of work reviewed and agreed

... The first week of working in Sankara - monday to saturday- has been very productive.... we have learnt much about how the Sankara hospital works, its processes and moreover have been able to review and agree with the CEO, Mr. Shrivatsan, on the scope of work.... reality is that it is 99% unchanged over the initial scope of work we received.

Our work consists of creating a framework for the departmental processes of the hospital and then providing an implementation plan to convert this into a knowledge management system.

What has called mostly my attention during the interviews with the ICs (In Charge) is that all are extremely proud of working for Sankara and are very committed to achieving the yearly & monthly KPIs (key performance indicators) that have been set for each department. These KPIs and the service level statements affecting patients are displayed very visibly.

We were treated by the logistics manager to a tour of the water treatment plant, laundry service; the kitchen manager  showed with much pride the kitchen to us and invited us to breakfast. We also met with the logistics department who, in their daily planning to collect & drop camp patients, also had a red line to provide transport for Alex, Sverre and I!

I think you might want to see some pictures of the Hospital.... the rest can be found in this link

Patient's waiting time

Spice table in the kitchen

Canteen restaurant

..Chillies....

Meeting with logistics department

Logistics plan for the day.... in red schedule for 'foreigners
'

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... we've been introduced to the complete IC (In Charge) team

Yesterday we had agreed with Mr. Srivatsan to meet all the department managers (in Charge).
Today a meeting was scheduled, and Mr Srivatsan, CEO, addressed the department 'In Charges' to introduce us, explain our work and to help them understand what we require from the scheduled meetings... he even, there and then, asked for a department In Charge to go through a process!
This has been very helpful as we now all have a clear picture of what is expected from us as the first deliverable.... the scope is very wide and we have much work ahead of us!

நன்றி (nandri) Thank you Mr. Srivatsan!

Some pictures from our day at Sankara

Mr. Srivatsan going through a process

Excellence for the customer!

We also learnt a little bit more about South India, B. Bharath, our patient teacher explained that it was the custom to call people in India by their first name with a prefix, such as Mr, Miss, Dr... etc... He also told us about what the B. in his initial stands for, it is his father name... but not an easy name to remember: Balasubramaniam... so we all agreed to keep on calling him Barath.

Sverre, Alex & Barath at lunch in the canteen

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... & on the 27th september it was Amanda's birthday!

On the 27th we all celebrated Amanda's 29th birthday..... per her request we had pizza's in the Déjâ vu Hotel and as a surprise, Kevin, the hotel manager, got a cake for her!

Some pictures ....

Cordula, Amanda, Sverre & Alex eating non veg pizzas

Amanda's birthday cake!

Amanda making her wishes

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1st day at Sankara Hospital

Today we went to Sankara Hospital!
Dr, Ramani shared with us his 2020 Vision "Vision 2020 objective;i.e of providing 20/20 vision for all by the year 2020.Our network of 8 hospitals,having 1850 beds,reaching across 7 states and 2 UT's,aims to treat one million visually impaired people yearly,2020 onwards"

It is impressive to how this institution provides free eye surgery and service for those without means and finances this 80% of their operations with 20% paying patients. And also they are extremely efficient in how they run their operations.. they have centralised departments for the many hospitals they have opened.

Bharath, who is the head of community outreach & information systems showed us the complex. It is so impressive. The yogurt and milk used in the hospital to feed patients comes from their own cows; the food to feed them is also homegrown! We had the opportunity to try it in our chai and yogurt at lunch time, really worth while!...

We also met Mr. C.V. Shivatsan, CEO of Coimbatore Hospital, who shared with us in detail his expectations from our work here this month. We now have a clearer idea of what we need to deliver and already started meeting the ICs (In Charge) of the departments. 

We thought that it would be a good idea to share a picture of our office in Sankar

Alex, Bharath & Sverre

Sverre, Mercedes y Alex

More pictures from today

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...much to write about.... kick off with partners

.... a lot has happened over the past couple of days...
Sunday was a getting into Coimbatore day... much  like a relaxed spanish sunday... late lunch, we had a great thali  and no dinner because we ate late and too much! Instead we went for a beer to a hotel bar


Monday was big day... we finally met Dr. R.V. Ramani  and Bharath from Sankara Eye Care, our Partner for this month!

Kabi & Jailan presenting CDS

teams listening to presentations

Dr. R.V. Ramani - Founder & Managing Trustee
Sankara Eye Care Institutions - India

We had great initial meeting and it was an opportunity to listen to Dr Ramani explaining how Sankara Eye care Institutions came about. It was inspiring to hear how he and his wife, who is also a doctor, started the NGO.

After meeting, Sverre, Alex & I went for a quick visit to Arulmigu Eachanari Vinayagar Thirukoil Temple

.... evening meal at Grand Regent Hotel

More pictures from monday

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...first comments from Coimbatore

..after a long trip, Madrid-London, London-Mumbai... (nicely I met Alex in the plane which helped with the long flight). Spent the night in Mumbai, met most of the team at breakfast and then to the airport to our final destination.... Coimbatore,..Hotel Deja Vu. We finally all met! this is the India CSC 12 team :)

I'm liking Coimbatore very much... it is smaller, less busy & noisy than Mumbai.... spent a relaxed afternoon walking by and had a great indian Mushroom Dosa for dinner...
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