Some journeys are measured in kilometres. Others are measured in the lives they touch.
The road was not an ordinary one. It stretched for nearly 230 kilometres, taking us almost six hours through winding roads, mountains, forests and mist. The farther we travelled, the quieter the familiar world became. Concrete slowly gave way to green. Roads narrowed. Villages became scattered. And somewhere beyond the mountains, more than ten hamlets waited for us. A village beyond the usual map. The remoteness of the place is not just a geographical description—it shapes everyday life.
We were travelling not merely to conduct a health camp. We were travelling to listen. To see. To understand. And, perhaps most importantly, to remind a community that they had not been forgotten.
We arrived with instruments, medicines, registers and screening forms. But we soon realised that the most important thing we had brought was something much less tangible: time.
Time to sit with people.. Time to listen.. Time to ask why.
The response from the community was overwhelming. 220 children were registered. For a moment, the number itself felt like an achievement. But it also presented a challenge. With limited time and resources, it was impossible to conduct a detailed assessment of every child during the same visit. So we adopted a triage-based approach, prioritising children who appeared to be at greater nutritional risk. It was not about choosing who mattered.
Every child mattered. It was about making sure that, with the resources available to us, those most vulnerable were seen first.
Numbers began telling stories
Behind every measurement was a child.
A weight! A height! A small arm wrapped around the MUAC tape! And a mother watching anxiously as we recorded numbers on a sheet of paper.
There were children whose health concerns could not be captured by a single number. A screening camp can tell you what you found. But the community tells you why.
The things we saw between the numbers. We saw the consequences of inadequate hygiene—not because people did not care, but because circumstances often determine what is possible. Clean clothes, medicines, transportation, access to healthcare—things that many of us consider ordinary can become privileges when you live far from the nearest facility.
We heard about limited access to medicines. We encountered reliance on traditional healers. We noticed gaps in awareness about vaccination, exclusive breastfeeding, nutrition and family planning. And we saw how difficult transportation can make a simple referral feel like an enormous journey.
A child’s first six months… The science may fit into a few lines in a textbook: “Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months.” But translating that sentence into practice requires something more than knowledge. It requires access to information… Support…. Counselling…. Family involvement…. And a health system that reaches the mother where she lives!
That day reminded us that public health is rarely about simply telling people what to do. It is about understanding what stands between knowledge and practice. The invisible distance between two children.
We often measure distance in kilometres- 230 kilometres! Six hours by road. But perhaps there is another distance we rarely measure.
The distance between a child who can reach a hospital within minutes and one for whom reaching a health facility may require hours of travel.
The distance between a mother who can easily obtain iron tablets and one who struggles to access medicines.
The distance between knowing that a vaccine is important and actually being able to complete the vaccination schedule.
That is also a health inequity.
And sometimes, the first step towards closing that distance is simply showing up.
Then mothers were assessed. Their stories were quieter, but no less important. The field visit reminded us that maternal health does not end with an ANC card. Nutrition, anaemia prevention, birth spacing, transportation, access to investigations and timely referral all come together to determine a mother’s health. And when we spoke about family planning, another concern emerged: ‘short intervals between successive births in families.’ Birth spacing is not merely a demographic indicator. It is about a mother’s recovery. A child’s nutrition. A family’s ability to cope.And the health of the next generation.
Public health is not always dramatic- There were no grand buildings. No sophisticated machines. No elaborate hospital corridors. Sometimes there was simply a doctor sitting beside a child, measuring an arm. A mother asking a question. A health worker sharing what she knew. A team walking from one hamlet to another. And perhaps that is where the real work of public health happens. Not always in hospitals, but in places where the hospital feels very far away.
What we brought back?
We arrived with instruments. We returned with observations.
We arrived to screen children. We returned with questions.
And perhaps the most important question: What can we do differently the next time we return?
Because a camp should never be the end of a story. It should be the beginning. This was not intended to be a one-day event where numbers were collected, photographs were taken and the team returned home.
The intention is to return.
On our journey back, the mountains looked different. Perhaps because we had crossed them not merely to reach a place, but to meet people.
The mist was still there.
The forest was still there.
The long road was still ahead.
But somewhere behind those mountains were children whose names we had written down, mothers whose stories we had heard, and families who had allowed us into a small part of their lives.
And that is the part of medicine that never appears on a prescription.
To travel far enough to understand. To listen before we speak. To serve without assuming.
And to return.
Because sometimes, healthcare begins long before the patient reaches a hospital. Sometimes it begins with a team willing to cross the mountains. Sometimes, the smallest beginning can become the longest journey towards change. And every change has to begin somewhere.
