Thankful

The last Friday of every month, the staff at the hospital meets together for a whole day of prayer where we remember the blessings we had over the past month and put forward specific prayer requests. On 29th November we met, and had a wonderful time of sharing the blessing we enjoyed over 2013 and thanking the Lord for each of them. 

Apologies for the delay in sharing these with you all . . .

Please join us in thanking the Lord for each of the blessings. 

1. The hospital has been done well in 2013 in spite of major challenges. The absence of a surgeon was a major challenge as traditionally we are known as a surgical centre. We thank the Lord that the requirements in terms of finances and other requirements have been met so far especially in the light of a salary revision this year. 

2. Sampoorn Development India, one like-minded organisation has facilitated the construction of a water-tank in the campus. The Lord willing, the construction should be over very soon. 

3. The hospital has got an exclusive electricity connection to the campus and the electricity supply to the region has improved tremendously with us getting an average of 20-22 hours of electricity every day. 

4. There was a portion of land which was donated to us by one of our staff about 2 decades back. Unfortunately, few of the locals had been preventing us from taking occupation of the land. The Lord worked in the minds of these locals and has enabled us to take possession of the land. We could construct a boundary for this land and last week, the Maintenance Department started to cultivate on this land. 

5. Our Community Health Projects have been doing well so far. The impact made by the Climate Change Project, Community Based Rehabilitation Project is being slowly seen in the community. 

6. Our engagement with the government has increased over the last year. In the sphere of Tuberculosis Control, the Tuberculosis Unit caters to a population of over 750,000 population and the Global Fund Project increases awareness about the disease in the district. The UNICEF had requested us to oversee the mentoring of Labour Room facilities in Palamu and Latehar districts, thereby influencing Reproductive and Child Health in the region. Today, we were informed that we have been once more been authorized to disburse funds under the Janani Suraksha Yojana. This scheme was discontinued about 2 years back saying that we did not qualify as we did not have the requisite facilities in terms of personnel. 

7. We live in a region with tremendous amount of social unrest. We estimate that our hospital vehicles travels an average of 300 kilometers every day. We thank the Lord for safety and protection from accidents. 

8. We had some amazing stories of miraculous healing over the last year. We thank the Lord for each of these patients. Many of these patients had come to us as a last resort. 

9. There have been few constructions in the hospital. We thank the Lord for the funds that has enabled us to do these constructions. Please remember the burns unit, critical care unit, the sarai etc.  for which we need more funds. 

10. We thank the Lord for the new staff who joined in 2013. Dr. Roshine Mary Koshy (Medicine Consultant), Dr. Grace Mary George (Medical Officer), Dr. Aroma Tirkey (Dentist), Ms. Meghala Ramasamy, Mr. Jonathan Hongsha (IT Manager), Ms. Sheron Mathew (Physiotherapist), Mr. Asherush (Pharmacist) and Mrs. Tavitha, Ms. Priyanka, Ms. Premadini (Staff Nurses). 

These are the first ten items of thanks and praise which came. There were many more . . . 

Thankful

(This post was written on 25th Sept, 2013. It could not be posted as there was no internet)

As I write this, I’m almost at the fag end of a holiday which we never expected to take. And looking back, I’m thankful.

To start off, after the end of our last vacation in June 2013, we had planned a break during the Puja vacation starting October first week.

Since the last 3 years, we were well aware that the Christian Medical Fellowship, Kerala was celebrating 50 years of it’s being a part of the lives of medical students in Kerala, including ours. We had been silently praying about it. But, the odds were stacked against us being there at the Annual Conference, which routinely falls in the month of September. The reasons were many. The major being that September is usually the busiest month in the hospital.

When I received the invitation of be part of the conference this year, there was one more hurdle in the form of Shalom’s midterm examination.

Then, sometime in the middle of August, we received information that Shalom’s examinations were postponed to the middle of October. And it meant that the chance of our going for a break in October was out of question.

And by now, we very well aware that to not take a break at least once in 3 months was very much detrimental for our spiritual and professional life. Therefore, we had to plan a break.

The best choice was to go off for the CMF Annual Conference.But, there was the major issue of getting tickets all the way to Kerala. I was sure that there would not be any tickets considering into fact that it was Onam during that part of the year. Onam is the major festival of Kerala. And it was only 3 weeks away.

I was playing around with the ticket availability on the internet, when I noticed that there was a handful of seats available in the Delhi Rajadhani for a particular date in September. The tickets in all trains during the same duration were waitlisted. In fact, the tickets for the Trivandrum Rajadhani also were heavily waitlisted on either side of this particular date.

I went ahead and booked the tickets. It was a miracle to get confirmed tickets to Kerala and that too on the Rajadhani just 3 weeks away from Onam. It looked as if the vacant seats were kept just for us.

And to make things easy for us at the hospital, Dr. Nandamani and Dr. Ango had planned to be here during the same time. 

However, we were in for more surprises.

The first surprise being of course was our being there at the CMF Annual Conference at Nicholson School, Tiruvalla.

The second is something personal. We found my mom nursing a bad paronychia (infection of the toe/finger) in her big toe without telling anybody. It turned out that we diagnosed her to be diabetic and got surgery done on the paronychia while we were in Kerala. It was amazing because if we had turned up only in October, we would not have been able to get her the best treatment possible. And maybe, she would have worsened by then. And we would not have been at peace facilitating her treatment over the phone. By God’s grace, the sugars got controlled within the period while we were in Trivandrum.

The third was something really amazing. We had been wishing for a CPAP machine for our acute care unit. It was quite expensive for us (about 1500 USD) and we had more pressing needs.

Dr Manoj who came to Tampanoor bus
stand with the machine

Couple of days before we were to come back, I got a message from Dr. Manoj Job, former medical officer at Premjyothi Hospital which was one of our sister institutions, about a bilevel CPAP machine which someone wanted to donate. And to my greatest joy, I found out that the machine was in Marthandom, about 30 miles from our house in Trivandrum.

I lost no time and in a matter of hours, the machine was with me. And I could bring it to NJH.

And then, we had the home-calling of one of our granduncles during our very short time in Kerala. We were so privileged to be part of the funeral and be able to meet quite a many of our relatives over a short span of time.





And it was also the first time, we journeyed via Delhi. The kids had a whale of a time being with their granduncle and aunty and later visiting the Train Museum and the Delhi Zoo. And the train journey to Kerala from Delhi an eye-soothing experience. 

As I journeyed back, I wondered at how many times in our lives, we make plans and the good Lord just wipes them away and brings plans which turn out to be life-changing.

I’m glad and privileged that the Lord loves us and plans for us much better than us. I wish I could completely put my trust in Him and turn my life hundred percent over to Him.

The bilevel CPAP machine at my home