Sion or Zion?

Mr. Hittite is in the hospital.

Not our Jeevan Sahara Kendra - but Lokmanya Tilak General Hospital - commonly known as Sion Hospital. This large teaching hospital is the closest govt. Anti-Retroviral Therapy centre - and this was where Mr. Hittite was getting his ART meds from.

Mr. Hittite is very sick.

Our team has been noticing on their regular home visits that he has not been responding well. On Monday we got a call from his wife saying he was quite unwell. Sheba and two staff went to see him and found him severely aneamic - and in need of urgent hospitalisation and blood transfusion. Probably a severe side-effect of the Zidovudine based combination therapy Mr. Hittite is on.

Our staff went back and took Mr. Hittite to the government teaching college hospital in Thane.

They were ready to admit him but said that he would have to arrange for 3 units of packed blood - each at Rs. 2000. They suggested taking him to Sion.

The relatives thought about it and returned home.

Mr. Hittite was incontinent and very weak.

Yesterday we took Mr. Hittite to Sion. A vehicle from the OASIS trust was taking their kids for their regular visit to the paediatric ART unit at Sion - so we bundled Mr. Hittite in along with Daniel - our JSK staffer. Mrs. Hittite and Giri - another of our staff took the train to Sion.

It took almost all day to get Mr. Hittite admitted. He was first given a place on the ground to lie on. Then, because he was so sick, he was put in a 'good place' - he was given his own hospital bed.

Our staff talked to the hospital doctors and the social workers about the fact that Mr. Hittite is impoverished. His father's brother has just had an accident and is being treated at a private hospital in Thane. Most of the family have been helping out with that man. When troubles come they come in legions.

Mr. Hittite has diarrhoea. His wife did not bring more changes of clothes. The indiginity of the poor.

A CT scan has been called for. Further tests. The treatment was not yet started at the end of the long day when Daniel and Giri headed home. We trust that some thing has been done.

Please pray for Mr. Hittite. This might be his last day.

Will he come out of Sion alive? Will he be transported to Zion? Will he face a bleak eternity?

Your prayers can make the difference.

In all the misery we believe, we have to believe, that our Lord holds out His hands. He knew what it was like to be poor. To be humiliated. To be beaten.

He suffered the indignity of watching his executioners steal his own clothes, and gamble for his undergarments. While hanging naked, nailed to the rough pieces of wood that was the Roman way of humiliating and torturing people to death.

He lives that we may live. And that Mr. Hittite may live too. Really. Forever.