Sarah Brown visits primary healthcare centre

NEW DELHI: As her husband was busy in bilateral engagements, Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, visited a healthcare centre here on Monday to get an idea of how Indian women coped with pregnancy-related issues.
    
Taking the local people by surprise, Sarah drove in with her entourage into a low-income locality in Northwest Delhi to visit a Primary Health Centre (PHC).
   
Accompanied by London-based NRI business tycoon Lord Swaraj Paul, she met around 25 pregnant women and inquired about the facilities being provided to them.
    
Sarah, who founded the charity Piggy Bank Kids, which began as a research fund to tackle complications in pregnancy and has now expanded into various projects helping disadvantaged children, freely mingled with the patients.
    
She had started the charity after the death of her first child, a daughter, who was prematurely born in 2001.
    
But what surprised the residents was the short walk that Sarah took to visit a nearby slum cluster. The local people had lined up along the roads and climbed atop the rooftops to get a glimpse of the VIP visitor.

An addition to the scene were nearly 150 students heading back home at the same time. Sarah asked the security officials to allow the students to pass, after which many of them followed her around in the slum as she interacted with some more women there.
    
Taking an unexpected stop, she also walked into an MCD-run primary school.
    
While the school kids were more keen to know where her children were, Sarah asked them what their ambition was and said, "It is important to study hard. If you want to become a doctor or join the army, you study hard."
    
Lord Paul, who was translating Sarah's words into Hindi, extended his best wishes to the PHC and said, "The work done here is tremendous. One has to appreciate the work of the doctors and I promise to extend all help when and wherever this centre needs."
    
Kantimani, a patient at the healthcare centre, said, "It is nice that she has decided to come here. Shows how much she cares for people."