Help

our beds at the current Jeevan Sahara Kendra

We got a call at 4 AM from Leena. Her husband Sanjay is very sick. Vomitting. Has been so for some time. Could we admit him. We told Leena to bring him to Jeevan Sahara Kendra at 11AM when Sheba will come.

When I arrived for staff prayers at 9AM I could see that they had already come.

Another call had come in the meantime. Mira and Santosh are desperate for help. They went all the way to Sion hospital where we had referred him - but were not given a bed. The hospital said that they did not have space and that the doctor who would be treating was not there - and so to come back later.

During our prayers Sanjay started vomitting. We had called Sheba. Then the sound of an autorickshaw outside. Mira had arrived with Santosh. Our JSK men put him in a chair and carried him in.

We have 3 beds in a 25 square feet space. 2 of them have 2 very sick men lying on them. Both have some cerebral infection - due to their immunity being ravaged by HIV.

We don't have the lab support, the nursing staff, all the bells-and-whistles to care for such sick men. We currently have 1 (moderately pregnant) nurse and 1 nurse aide. Our one other qualified nurse is on her way back between Orissa and Thane - and due to arrive at 3 AM tomorrow morning.

But we have few options. Today is the Ganesh Visrajan festival and the whole city will grind to a stop. Even thinking to taking these men to a govt. hospital is foolish. They will just not be admitted.

Help.

So Sheba is now with the two families. Doing what can be done. We feel weak but know that we have to trust that God will help us minister to our desperately ill friends. The public health system - as decent as it is here compared to our Jharkhand days - has failed. The family resources of these two couples are scant. We are all that they have right now.

We prayed this morning that God will help us through the day.

So we go forward on a wing and a prayer.

We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
And needing more each day Thy grace to know:
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
“We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.”