Posted online: Sep 13th, 2011

An Inishowen doctor has been helping transform the lives of the sick in a poverty-stricken region of India.
Prof Dennis McGonagle, who is from Glengad but now lives in Leeds, travelled to the Asian country earlier this year and has told the Inish Times he “is very committed to returning.”
He was one of 15 doctors who visited the Punjab region along with the “Slum Doctor” charity, which works to improve the lives of the sick in the country where free healthcare is not available to all.
Prof McGonagle, who along with the rest of the team funded the trip himself, said: “There is extreme poverty and hardship there but the people are incredibly friendly, polite and kind.”
Working up to 12 hours at a time the team saw around 8,000 patients over three days, organised 300 hearing aids to be fitted, carried out 300 eye operations, 50 general operations and around 20 hip and knee operations.
Prof McGonagle said: “We would see the patients when we were there and then the charity organises payment for their treatment for them after we leave.
“I listed 16 people for joint replacements when I was there.”
He added: “In the 20 years I’ve been practicing medicine I have never seen such advanced cases of arthritis. Many of the people I saw arrived on stretchers.”
One woman in her 30s, he said, arrived on a stretcher while another man who came in on a zimmer frame had been walking on a fractured hip for over two years.
“The poverty is such that many patients with mild arthritis could not even afford simple pain killers. We were able to give them a month’s supply of Ibuporfen.”
Dennis said it was a colleague and friend, Dr Vijay Bangar, who first introduced him to the Slum Doctor project, and now that he has gone once he is very committed to returning.
He said one of the things that shocked him most about India was the extreme divisions in wealth: “It’s very divided and there is amazing contrast even between neighbours.
“India is coming on great as a country but there is still amazing poverty. I’ve often heard it referred to as ‘a Thrid World Superpower’.”
The son of Danny and Mary McGonagle, as a child Dennis attended Glengad National School and then Carndonagh Community School before studying medicine and UCD.
He graduated with first class honours and moved to Leeds in 1996 where he completed a PhD.
He is now Professor of Investigative Rheumatology at the University of Leeds and
Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals.
He asked if there were any “physios, doctors or nurses” in the Inishowen area who were interested in getting involved to email him at D.G.McGonagle@leeds.ac.uk.