LEDBURY Rotarian Jan Long has returned home from her mercy mission to India, where she worked alongside local medical staff in Delhi, helping to immunise people against the polio virus.

Mrs Long, who spent a week in India, after flying out on January 25, said the time passed by quickly and she returned home with mixed feelings and needing time to reflect.

She said: "I was humbled by what I'd seen, uplifted by being in a position to help save children from polio and astonished by the remarkable dignity and cheerfulness of people who, though have nothing, overwhelmed us with their kindness and courtesy.

"India has a splendid history, culture and diversity; yet there lurks beneath the surface a darker side of poverty and polio. Fear of the scourge of malformed limbs, twisted spines, paralysis and sometimes death from the poliovirus brings dread to families when children display the early signs of the disease."

She added: "In the battle to defeat polio, Rotarians from clubs around the globe in late January joined forces with health workers to vaccinate every child in India against it. Immunisation now takes the form of drops given orally to all children under the age of five and I had the opportunity to join teams from other countries to work in the capital, Delhi.

"The programme of work began at 8am each day. The first main event, following a briefing, was a visit to a school whose 800 pupils took part in a colourful parade and rally to herald the arrival of the immunisation teams and raise awareness of the National Immunisation Project.

"The welcome stretched hundreds of yards and stopped five lanes of traffic."

Mrs Long added: "I had brought with me small gifts, which I distributed to them all after they had been immunised. After 200 children had received gifts, none were left, but the Delhi health workers had small plastic balls to give as presents to ensure that no one was left out."

Mrs Long, who carried a goodwill message from Ledbury's mayor, Cllr Debbie Baker to the Indian authorities, was moved not only by the sights and sounds of a great civilisation, but by the poverty she witnessed.

She said: "The slums are indescribably awful: testaments to abject poverty, with no sanitation or infrastructure. Rubbish and excrement surround them. Igloo-shaped dwellings are made from any available pieces of wood and their roofs from branches, plastic and material. A hole in the ground serves as a stove for the preparation of food ”

Mrs Long added: "Our visits took us to the Rotary Foundation-endowed St. Stephen’s Hospital, where the Polio Unit’s dedicated orthopaedic miracle worker, Dr Matthew labours long hours to provide mobility, albeit by dint of callipers and crutches, to the seriously crippled young adults not immunised when they were infants.

"We donated cash from our Rotary Clubs toward the cost of equipment needed to help straighten malformed spines. I visited schools, at which I witnessed at first hand children eager to be educated, and hospitals and polio immunisation booths where the people desperately wanted to rid their country of the virus and displayed sheer joy at meeting Rotarians from around the globe."

Mrs Long said she was often overcome with frustration and sadness at being unable to do more to help.

But she added: "I was a guest in another country and that it was not for me to question, judge or reason, but simply to help. Would I do it again? Without hesitation."