Group snaps . . . Jubilee

The Jubilee gave us an occassion to take few groups snaps including a snap of the whole hospital staff which has been done after quite a long time. If anybody likes to have a original copy of the snaps please let me know.

This is the first one - the whole of the hospital. I counted 85 of the 100 odd staff we have.

The we had the committees . . . Starting with the Unit Management Committee

The Nursing School Committee

The Burns Committee

We also had few more snaps which I shall put in my next post . . . .

Praise and Prayers . . .18 Nov . . .

I always hope that friends of NJH who keep us in prayers would benefit from my postings and would uphold us in their regular prayers.

Recently, one of my very close friends requested that I be very specific and put in the praise and prayer points regularly.

So, here is it. I hope to put it on once a week.

Praise Points . . .

1. Today morning, we had a sort of surprise inspection from the Income Tax Department. They were paying such a visit after quite a long time because of which there was a bit of anxiety at the administration level. But, the inspection went off quite smoothly and the officers were quite happy with our papers. They were so happy that they insisted on having a group photograph with all the doctors and office staff.

2. We have got one of my friends getting interested in further helping us with the construction of the burns unit. There is quite a lot of homework for us to do before it can be taken forward. We thank the Lord for this friend of mine who has shown interest in our work among burns patients.

3. The Daltonganj State Bank of India has promised to look into donating us medical equipment worth about 250,000 Indian Rupees. We thank the Lord for this initiative from the SBI authorities. The quotations have already been given to them. Kindly pray that the Lord will give us success.

4. We had some very sick patients come to us especially over the last week. KB, who had been in obstructed labour with a dead baby for about a week has done well and has been discharged. SD, who was quite a complicated case is slowly making a recovery although she has a long way to go. PD, whose baby had hydrocephalus in a breech presentation has also gone home well.

5. The baby born to KD is gaining weight quite well. The family is quite delighted to have a live baby after 2 intrauterine deaths. Please continue to remember this family who is quite poor.

Prayer points -

1. Dr. Srijit Pradhan, our ophthalmologist has left today for his daughter's wedding. Kindly pray for the family as they travel to Cuttack today, preparations for the wedding and the ceremony including the reception arranged at Nagercoil.

2. Sr. Rita Pradhan, our Nursing School Principal is on travel to various nursing schools as part of MIBE inspection. Kindly pray as she travels.

3. One of the social activitist nuns from the Catholic church, Sr. Valsa John who had been working for the upliftment of the tribal community has been murdered. in our state of Jharkhand. The funeral was yesterday at Dumka. Please pray that we would not be discouraged by incidents such as this.

4. Please pray for PD who had come to us about 4 days back with severe post-partum eclampsia. Her blood pressure is yet to be fully control. Kindly pray for her complete recovery.

5. We have a very preterm baby born to a mother with severe eclampsia. The mother died after couple of days of the delivery of  pulmonary edema and cardiac failure.

6. LO is a young boy with tetanus. He has done well so far. Kindly pray for his completely recovery.  

Please do share this post with friends who will spent one minute of prayer for us. I hope I shall be able to post 'Praise and Prayer' posts on a regular basis.

Golden Jubilee - the Finale

We had been quite busy and with the sort of sick patients we had been having through the Golden Jubilee programme and a shortage of doctors, I could not find enough time to post the rest of the pictures of the Golden Jubilee celebrations. And later I lost count of whatever I had posted. I realised only last week that I did not put in the final day's programmes.

The finale started with the prompt arrival of the chief guest, Mr. Harikishan, the honourable MLA of our region.

The programme began with lighting of the lamp by the chief guest, the former MLA, Ramchandar Singh and Dr. Mark Kniss.

As in most of the meetings, quite a lot of people spoke. Here is a snap of Dr Santosh Mathew, the Executive Director of EHA addressing the meeting.

The Chief Guest, the honourable MLA, Mr. Harikishan addressing the audience.

Previous leaders of the unit as well as staff who completed 25 years of service were felicitated. Below is a snap of Dr Kniss felicitating Dr Manohar Paul.

EHA honoured Dr Kniss by presenting a silver plaque.

Dr Kniss thanked everyone for the programme as well as exhorted us to carry on the good work.

Quite a sizeable crowd turned up to witness the final proceedings.

Acute Abdomen . . . Unusual cause

The acute abdomen is has always been a favorite question with examiners in under-graduate and post-graduate examinations.

 

Just wanted to share one of our patients, RD, pregnant for about 8 months who came in with severe abdominal pain. She had already been in couple of places where a diagnosis of preterm labour and was made and she was started on all sorts of medications to stop uterine contractions.

We had already been burdened with quite a number of patients which has stayed put since the Golden Jubilee. RD came in sometime between SD's and PD's arrival in hospital.

I just could not make heads or tails of the diagnosis as the patient appeared to be writhing in pain, but had a very soft abdomen and the uterus was far from any sort of contractions. So, I asked Nandu to take a relook at RD. Nandu was also quite baffled. But he had picked up some chest findings and he asked me to look at the possibility of a pneumonia.

Yes, it was pneumonia. There was an area of bronchial breathing with fine crepitations in the left basal region. And the X-Ray chest confirmed it. In addition, she had a total count of 28500 with predominantly neutrophilia with toxic changes.  

RD responded quite well to antibiotics. As quite commonly seen in antenatals in this part of the world, she was also anemic and after we did a blood transfusion, RD's road to recovery was quite fast.

We thank God that RD reminded us to go through our text-books once in a while so that our grey cells remain active and refreshed.

Working in resource poor settings . . .

It was about a week ago that one of our visitors initiated a discussion on innovative methods to get things done especially in settings like ours. Of course, one of the best examples which has been used is the Newmon ventilator which has served us quite well.


In my previous stinct, my colleagues had somehow improvised an airway circuit to give continuous positive airway pressure for sick babies. It was quite a simple circuit and had worked wonders in saving quite a number of premature and sick babies.



The thought lingered on for about couple of days before a preterm baby was delivered at NJH. To make matters worse, the baby was not keeping saturation well. We got a circuit ready in no-time and presto, it worked. I was quite encouraged.

2 days back, we had one more preterm born to a mother with severe eclampsia and he has also done well with the contraption.

Of course, you may say that cheap CPAP machines are now available. But with all the problems with electricity especially voltage fluctuations, simpler solutions such as these are a real blessing...