Land of milk, and . . .

When we joined NJH in 2010, one of the major issues we faced was the scarce availability of milk. There was not even an ounce of cow’s milk to be brought. Buffalo milk was available,  but in very small quantities. Providing milk to the children was always a challenge and most of the time, we were dependent on packaged milk.

Well, things have changed a lot.

As most of you have read in the news media, we are in the middle of a bad drought.

However, there is no scarcity of milk nowadays. We get cows’ milk for giving the kids. And there is quite an abundance of buffalo milk.

Such good milk that we get approximately 100 gms of butter every day. Recently, we had so much butter stored up in the refrigerator that we made ghee (clarified butter) out of it.

It’s so amazing. Poor availability of milk was something we put before the Lord when we reached here in 2010.

With the sort of agriculture work that is happening (in spite of a drought), I’m sure that the Lord will bless us with honey also in no time.

All praises to God, Jehovah Jireh, the provider of all things good for his children. 

Annual Report 2013-14

 

Comparing costs

Recently, Isaw a website which showed cost of foodstuff in different parts of the world.

Sometime last week, I happened to buy some vegetables in a nearby village market. After I came come, I realized that it may be a good thing to put up the below snap of whatever I brought and request my blog readers to put up here the cost of the same amount of vegetables in their town.

The amount of different vegetables and their costs are put up in the table below - - -

Item	Cost per kilogram	Nos. of kilograms	Total cost
Tomato	10.00	2	20
Cauliflower	8.00	1.250	9
Greens	5	2	10
Carrot	10.00	2	20
Capsicum	20.00	0.50	10
Beans	10.00	2	20
Grand total		9.75	89

1 kilogram (kg) equals about 2.2 pounds (lbs). 

Unbelievable . . . but true. When I called one of my friends and made a comment about this, he volunteered to check the costs in his place and get back. The costs totaled approximately 250 INR.

Would like readers to get back regarding this post and tell the cost of vegetables kept in the snap, in their town or city . . . 

Farmers' Fair, Satbarwa

Along with the program for People with Disability, our program to mitigate climate change has been making major inroads. Especially, the activity on promoting millet cultivation and use. As I mentioned in my previous post, we could be playing a major role in the district level in this theme.

We held a 'Farmers Mela' in Satbarwa block in association with the Krishi Vigyan Kendra and the Block Development Office. Snaps of the same . . .

Inauguration by the Block Development Officer

Section of the audience

Stall on behalf of the Birsa Agriculture University by the Krishi Vigyan Kendra

Display by farmers

The Stall from the CBR project . . . 

There were prizes given off for the best farmer . . . 

There was a stall selling chowmein, idlis and pooris .. .. made from fingermillet . . . 

Praise and Prayer Bulletin, May 2013

Below are our praise and prayer points for the month. 

1. Dr. Roshine Mary Koshy, our new Internal Medicine consultant has passed her MD exams. We praise the Lord. And we request prayers as she makes the transition to NJH.

2. I was away for about 2 weeks. I thank Lord for the leadership given by Ms. Meghala and Dr. Shishir in my absence.

3. Please pray for Dr. Titus and Dr. Grace who’ll be getting married on May 20^th and Mr. Dinesh and Sr. Priscilla who gets married on May 30^th.

4. We are in the process of consolidating the achievements of the previous years. We thank the Lord that the auditing went about without much hitches.

5. We continue to remain empanelled under RSBY. However, there are major issues with compensations which is a major deterrant for the smooth functioning of the program. Please pray that all problems will be ironed out.

6. Drs. Nandamani and Ango plan to be with us at NJH from the 22^nd June to 2^nd July. Please pray for their travel and other arrangements.

7. There is a small window period in the first 2 weeks of June, when we are going to be really short of doctors. Kindly pray for this time. Please encourage doctors who can help out to contact us.

8. At EHA, we’ve making an effort to remind ourselves that we are primarily here as spiritual leaders. At NJH too, we are well aware of the need for us to lean more on the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We request you for prayers that we will grow in the Lord, our fellowship will be an offering of sweet fragrance to the Lord and we will be a blessing to each person whom we deal with, staff and patient.

9. Quite  a lot of our staff are on summer holidays. Kindly pray that they would have a good time of rest and refreshment. Do uphold the team who’s taking the extra burden in the absence of the staff.

10. There is need for more staff in the Community Health Projects. Kindly pray for the need.

11. We continue to dream about the presence of a Pediatrician, Surgeon, Orthopaedician and an Anesthetist in our team. Please pray. Specialists become all the more necessary because of laws like the Clinical Establishment Act and the continuing danger of litigations in this era.

12. We’re into a major phase of investing into our Hospital Information System. Kindly pray for Mr. Jonathan who’s giving the leadership. There is a need for quite a lot of funds. 

Satbarwa's Niagara

We had gone for a trip to a hostel run by the Catholic Church in a place called Garu. It was quite a hectic day for the team as we had to see through approximately 300 children. There was an epidemic of fever going on in the place since one week and that was the reason we were called for.

After everything was over, the authorities in charge of the hostel asked us if we would like to visit a waterfall nearby. It was just about a kilometer and therefore we decided to visit. And wow . . . it was worth the trip.

Well, the trip was also quite picturesque too. A few snaps from the trip. Unfortunately, I was quite tired after a very hectic week. And was more tired after the camp. Thanks to our dentist, Dr Basil and our engineer, Mr. Dinesh who ensured that we have enough photographs of the trip.

The last picture was the best thing that our kids enjoyed during the journey. We had to cross 10 such sections of the river running over the road during the journey. And Dinesh, who drove us ensured that all those with the windows open got sprayed with the water. The snap would surely make it to the Annual Report next year.

Shall post details of the Medical Camp after I get the blood tests too.  

THE COSTLY DELAY - 1

You may have read this statement somewhere –

‘If you want to know the value of one year, just ask a student who failed a course.

If you want to know the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

If you want to know the value of one hour, ask the lovers waiting to meet.

If you want to know the value of one minute, ask the person who just missed the bus.

If you want to know the value of one second, ask the person who just escaped death in a car accident.

And if you want to know the value of one-hundredth of a second, ask the athlete who won a silver medal in the Olympics.'

Couple of days back, I had two patients who would have done better if they had not delayed coming to us on time. I shall narrate the story of the first patient in this post and in a later post, the story of the second one.

LR is a 55 year old man from a nearby village, Rankikala. Since the last 1 month LR has been sick with vague symptoms. It started off with fever on and off in the evening. He went to the local practitioner (RMP) in our market village, Satbarwa who prescribed him some tablets. He improved for couple of days, after which the fever had come back. In addition, he developed something new – he had episodes of seizures of his right leg alone.

Satbarwa is famous for a Vaid (traditional healer) who is specialized in neurological ailments. I’m told that he uses the extract of garlic to make a concoction which is given as an intramuscular injection. I’ve had quite a lot of patients who vouch for this remedy in the treatment of neurological ailments. However, I’ve noticed that the recovery mainly occurs in patients who had ischemic strokes – which would have healed otherwise too. Since LR felt that having seizures is something related to the nerves, he straightaway went to the vaid at Satbarwa.

Unfortunately, nothing much happened. He still had a fever and cough was worsening. However, he felt that those symptoms are secondary and he needed to get treatment for his seizures. The seizures continued to occur. The Vaid decided that this needed further evaluation and send him to one of the physicians in Daltonganj. The doctor of Daltonganj also treated him for about 2 weeks – before LR decided that there was not much improvement.

LR came to NJH OPD couple of days back – He was frail and it was obvious that he had lost quite a lot weight recently. His pulse was feeble and Blood Pressure was just 80/50. His chart came to my table – as he entered my room, the diagnosis was obvious - Lung abscess. The stink from his breath was unbearable. It was difficult to fathom how one could miss the stink. And from his blood pressure and history of seizures  - possibilities narrowed down to either a disseminated malignancy or disseminated tuberculosis. Sputum AFB turned out positive for tuberculosis. I did an X-Ray which is put up here.

LR's Chest X-Ray

LR had spent almost 10,000 rupees by the time he came to us. He would have done better with a CT Scan Brain. But, he just did not have the money to make a trip to Ranchi leave alone the CT Scan. In addition to the Anti-Tuberculosis treatment, we have also started him on Steroids and Anti-seizure medications.

LR waits with his son for his anti-tuberculosis medicines

I’m confident that he will do well. However, things would have been easier had he turned to us early – which brings us to question on why people avoid coming to people like me in the first place. Money is obviously the major issue is institutions such as ours. However, he would not have had to spent this much if he had come to us straightaway. But, I did not understand why this does not happen, until I heard about ‘agents’ about whom I shall post soon.

My only prayer is that the delay would not turn out to too costly for LR whereby he may lose his life – unlike RD about whom I shall write in my next post (http://jeevankuruvilla.blogspot.com/2011/09/costly-delay-2.html).