Remembering 2011 . . . .

Its a tradition as we pass on to a new year to remember the major events of our lives and be thankful that we are blessed to see yet another year.

2011  - the major points of thanksgiving . . .

1. For me and my family, we thank the Lord that we were able to be there for the whole year which witnessed quite a lot of happenings at NJH. A violent society around us has been the biggest challenge. Life has not been smooth with quite a number of bandhs around. We thank the Lord that he kept us and all the staff and their families safe and healthy in 2011. 

2. Obstetric care at NJH has been quite busy. We had patients like KB, PD and SD who survived in very adverse situations in spite of losing their babies. Then we had quite miraculous escapes for babies, AB, SD, KD and SB - all of them were blessed with live babies.Unfortunately, we witnessed quite a number of maternal deaths, the last of them being RD. In fact, I started off this blog to a certain extent to highlight the poor obstetric care in the region. The post on the stories about LD, SD and MD is the most read post of my blog. We are thankful for the mothers and babies we saved. We look forward to the day, when pregnant women in this region would get basic antenatal care without much hiccups and there are facilities in place for complicated cases. We are thankful that government health authorities along with UNICEF has already started to take steps in the right direction.

3. We've had a 100% survival rates with regard to tetanus patient care. Starting off with MS who in fact made it into the 2012 NJH calendar to LO and SK - all of them did well. We thank the Lord for all of them as well as for the superb nursing care.

4. We are thankful for Dr Nandamani who has been giving great leadership in surgical care at NJH. We've had few open prostatectomies. All of them did well. The first cholecystectomy which Nandu did was quite a complicated one. Subsequent to that, he did few more. All the patients have done well. We've had quite a number of burns patients - many of them have been healed. VM, MI and LD were few of our successfully managed patients. We thank the Lord for each of them.

5. In addition to routine surgical work, Dr Nandamani also initiated the burns unit construction. - which has progressed well. The presence of Dinesh with his sound experience of engineering has been a blessing. We are thankful for Dr Ron Hiles, Dr Colin Binks and Ms RuthAnn, who have been steadfastly working towards this dream for quite a long time. There have been amazing developments over the last month which has encouraged us quite a lot. We thank the Lord that we are part of this amazing process.

6. The Golden Jubilee celebrations was something we looked forward. We thank the Lord that the celebrations went on quite smoothly. We were quite privileged to have had Mark Kniss for the celebrations. We are thankful that the Lord gave him the health to fly all the way from the US to be part of us.

7. The purchase of a new ventilator, couple of multipara monitors, a Nycocard reader for HbA1C along with the necessary electrical back-up and a non-contact tonometer is a major thanksgiving point for the year 2011.

8. During the second half of 2011, we had quite a lot of patients with severe malaria. We thank the Lord for patients like MS and Jithen's grand-daughters whom we could save.

9. We had a very bad epidemic of viral encephalitis in our region in 2011. We had few patients who were too poor to go to a higher centre. We thank the Lord that we could manage these patients especially because of the availability of one more ventilator.

10. The last weeks of 2011 brought about more good tidings - I've had initial reports of a Pediatrician willing to join us soon. We pray for this person as a decision is taken - we pray that the Lord will lead. There appears to be solutions appearing for water security for NJH as well as surrounding regions. Many of our friends and wellwishers have started to respond positively towards our future requirements. We are so thankful for this.

We've a very popular Gospel song in Malayalam (Tamil translation) the translation of which goes something like -

- To thank Thee counting each blessing

- For the countless blessing You've bestowed

- You've kept us safe in your palms so far

- You've carried me, O Lord . . . 

(All those with better literary skills, kindly excuse)

Similiar to the song, for us at NJH, the blessings have been countless...We've tried to count them.... But they are endless and we acknowledge that... I shall put in a seperate points on our dreams for 2012.  I wish to share with you the Kingdom Bible Reading Plan which I plan to follow next year . . .  Wish each one of you a blessed 2012.