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Dr. Samuel |
NEWS FROM NAMAKKAL
Greetings from Namakkal-Dr.Sam
November 24, 2009 Siva kumar is the older brother-who works in a poultry farm. He earns 2000Rs per month(44US$) and paying the debt which Ponnusamy incurred during his life time. He paid up three installments and still has to pay two more. Gomathi is the girl who wakes up at 6am each day. She cleans the rooms and the front of the house and put some flowers on the floor,then cooks breakfast for three and lunch. Packs for all of them. Then washes and goes to school by taking the bus at 7.15 each day. If she misses it then she has to walk for four kms! She returns home in the evening some times at 7pm or later by bus. Once we picked her up at school at 7pm as she was waiting for a bus. She gets back to make dinner and then has to read, The lights that were provided by Julie thru Center for Church and global AIDS and switched on by Don Messer. It is a great help for her to read in the night. We are working on the private bathroom for her. We are yet to find the total amount needed for the bathroom and once we have it, we will build it. I hope we can do it before the new year. Murugan is the little boy and at times when he talks he is more mature than 8 an eight year old. He is stubborn and at times fails to take the ARdrugs! He is cute and it was his birthday and he wanted to have a cake to celebrate. (this is so common even in villages as they see it on the idiot box all the time!!) So in the presence of our colleagues, Don and Pam he was presented a cake and a candle and we all sang happy birthday. He was blessed by Don and he dedicated the house as well. Few random thoughts from India from here to Don and Julie and other friends of Namakkal. Sam
May 9, 2009
Regarding Ponnusamy-I have observed that his eldest girl( 11 years) who is playing the role of mum-cooking and cleaning and bringing in water from the local well for drinking and washing before she goes to school. April 8, 2009 Feet are so rough... Some spend a great deal of time in looking after their feet-soaking, polishing and ensuring that the fee are smooth. Several hours are spent in realizing that feet are an important part of the human body. However in rural India, the majority of men and women walk bare footed and they continue this practice from childhood. They seem unperturbed with this practic and go on in life as if there is no need to put on slippers or sandals. One expects that children who go to school may be different but they too seem to be following their parents. But at times even in villages one notices that women and men dress well and do put on slippers if they are going for a marriage ceremony or a temple festival but then this is only for that special occasion. The Indian culture demands that one does not enter homes and places of worship with slippers on or one does not speak to the elders with slippers on. Porbably it's easier for the majority to walk bare foot. On Tuesday, we at the Care Health Center in Namakkal celebrated the washing of feet of our HIV/AIDS patients; and to explain to our clients that they celebrated the birth of Jesus with us on the December 23 and now they are invited to celebrate the Holy week and the significance of washing of feet, the Last Supper and the Resurrection. There were 22 women, children and men. We had a short prayer followed by a short talk by me as to the significance of washing of feet by our Lord and the meaning of the divine Humility. The clients were unhappy that we were planning to wash their feet but the significance was understood as I initiated the washing of feet of Ponnusamy and Ranganathan. My colleagues-Stella, Premavath, Viji- washed the others feet. We dried them with clean towels. The feet I washed were so hard and rough and full of dry clay/dust the feet pick up as they walked barefoot from their villages to the Care Health Center. Then I washed the feet of the staff and it was a unique and moving experience to witness several breaking down. I don't understand why we were so emotional! We all ate from the same bun and later each had a bun to take away. All the clients and staff (not Christian) understood the meaing of the washing of the feet by Jesus and the breaking of the bread. At times it is difficult to explain the death of Christ on the cross as they it difficult to understand but they had no problem in understanding the washing of the feet and breaking of the bread. On another occasion we have to attempt to explain the mystery of resurrection.
Dear friends, Belated Happy New Year and all the best for 2009. We closed the year 2008 with "Christmas in Namakkal", a function organized for PLHA on December 23rd at hotel Nala. The district collector Mr. U.Sagayam along with Madam Vimala Sagayam participated and interacted with children and women. They kindly presented gifts to all the PLHAs and their families. We wlecomed Dr. Jessie Lionel from Christian Medical College, Vellore and Ms. Sue Ann and Hannah from Bethany Lutheran Church in Denver. Sue Ann spoke at the function and brought greetings from the Center for Church and Global AIDS, La Veta Friends of Namakkal and Bethany Luteran Church, Denver. Sue Ann showed great interest in the proposed "Eye Programme" of the CARE for both children and their grandparents in Namakkal and Kolli Hills. We are happy to welcome my doctoral student, Dr. Radhakrishnan, MSC, PhD as the Co-ordinator of the Programs at C.A.R.E. Health Center. He is not a stranger tot he field of HIV/AIDS and Namakkal. He worked since 2001 in Namakkal with PLHAs. In addition, he was mentored by Drs. Mini Jacob, Parameshwari, Ramesh, and Vijayakumari. He brings with him years of experience in PMTCT, alternate feeding practices, exclusive breast feeding and its relevance in seropositive mothers. He will be an asset to the Research and Education programme of the C.A.R.E. He recently returned from Libya where he was a lecturer in S.A. Medical University.
NO PLACE AT THE INN ! Ponuraj is a middle aged man with two children living in a small village in the district of Namakkal in southern India. One day it was raining heavily and he went to his neighbors, who were his distant relatives, asking them if they would allow his two young children to stay the night. Their little thatch hut had a huge hole in the roof and they would get rained while they tried to sleep. They were rude and sent him away. He was an HIV infected individual and the entire viallage was very concerned about him and his clidren and did not show any type of discrimation that is often witnessed in other communities. The children played freely with the others and everyone loved the father and the children. Ponuraj had to walk for 8 kilometers to work in a field and earned approximately US $2 per day. He spent this on food and fuel. He was very proud person and did not consider sending his children to the boarding school or a day hostel. He wanted to work, earn and take care of himself and his children. We had a group of visitors from the La Veta United Methodist Church and the team of five was led by Pastor Betty Brown. The objective of their tour was to share and learn from the lives of HIV/AIDS patients in the Namakkal district. They wanted to learn of their struggles, aspirations and challenges. Each day the team went out to visit a family that required their attention and counseling. One day they were with Parvathi amma's home talking to her and encouraging her to not about her baby. Parvathi amma was holding a toddler in one hand and with the other she was trying to cook.Being HIV positve, she was not at all keen to go on with the second pregnancy but was very attentive when she was told that it is dangerous for her to try abortion as she is in the second trimetster. She was told that there was medication that would help her and the baby. On the second day, the visitors went to another family and within a half an hour, the entire children of the village gathered to see them. They gave them hand knitted finger puppets that were brought from La Veta, which made them very happy. They also loved having their photos taken and then wanted to see what they looked like on the camera. How often do adults take time out to spend with the children in the villages?? On the fourth day the group decided to go to the home of Ponuraj to clean the entire thatched hut! Have you ever heard of this type of kindness? Never! As they were completing the cleaning and washing and putting the things back in the hut, they realized that there was a hole in the roof. This made them unseasy and wondered as to how the children will sleep in case it rained! The visiting group from La Veta organized funds on the spot to construct a proper hollow block cement house. Within 3 months, the house is constructed with proper flooring and a good tiled roof and door to lock their articles and clothes. Ponuraj does not have to knock at the neighbors for children to sleep overnight because it is raining. (The names of the HIV positive person have been changed)
Why Namakkal? Namakkal is a town 400kms from Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu in South India. A local physician had requested additional support for the diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS as he noticed an increase in the number of HIV/AIDS cases in his practice. He contacted us as we were working on the prevention of the AIDS virus from pregnant mothers to their infants. My first visit to Namakkal in 1998 was an eye opener as were the numbers of patients that waited for diagnosis and treatment. A preliminary survey of the postnatal women attending clinics was conducted by a student to assess the number of positives among them. It was a small sample but the findings were alarming as 6% of pregnant women were carrying the HIV/AIDS virus. The seropositives in other parts of the state of Tamil Nadu range between 1-2%. We came to Namakkal in faith to establish voluntary counseling and testing services at the hospital, followed by the Center for the Prevention of the mother-to-child transmission. Our program gained momentum and the women attendees at the postnatal clinic consented to be tested and returned to collect the results. Shared information in groups led to individual counseling in private for those who tested positive. One Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission Center (PMTCT) in Namakkal mushroomed into five centers in the surrounding area in a short period. Namakkal is an interesting district with three distinct demographic settings 1.The semi-urban region in and around the Namakkal town where people work on the long distance trucking industry as drivers, mechanics, truck builders, and adolescent boys work as truck assistants. 2. The rural part where people work as agriculturists, daily laborers and weavers. 3. The hilly tribal region of Kolly Hills, located 1200 meters above sea level, with 275 villages. Each of the three sectors represents different cultural and sexual patterns due to their location, occupation and migration. These initiatives in Namakkal led to international attention and collaborative protocols with funding coming from NICHD and the EGPAF to name a few. The successful implementation of PMTCT centers in the field was established with appropriate infrastructure. This drew the attention of the National AIDS Control Organization and led them to initiate the first anti-retroviral therapy in a public sector at a rural district in the country. These initiatives saved several hundreds of children from AIDS and many of those infected with the AIDS virus are living beyond 5 years with anti-retroviral prophylaxis. The drugs were initially donated by Dr. Carl Pommer and Dr. Hans Jaeger from Germany and Dr. Donald Messer from USA. Why C.A.R.E.Health Center? Despite the excellent work undertaken by our health care providers the rural women and children seem to be lacking when it came to personalized services, especially women who are HIV/AIDS positive. Most of the health care providers are men and there are few who provide appropriate health care facilities to women in the public health system. The emphasis is on establishing a diagnosis and starting treatment of patients. Inadequate counseling and follow up causes lack of compliance and confidence in the health care system. The “loss to follow up” of patients on ART needs to be reviewed so that care can be provided at home if necessary. Opportunistic infections and tuberculosis in particular need constant sustainable therapy and follow up. It is important to go beyond the diagnosis and to treat the patient in a holistic manner. In addition, children both infected and affected are very special and their needs are different. Health care providers need to spend more time on the issues of drug regimen and the way they are prescribed as prescriptions do not translate into medication. Several infected children are not interested in swallowing the tablets. What Next? New Responsibilities The C.A.R.E. Health Center was started to provide care to the women and children. We offer the following services.
On behalf of the C.A.R.E. Health Center, we thank you all for your support and initiative in visiting us in Namakkal, for experiencing our difficulties and for sharing our challenges. As we take on the new responsibilities, we look forward to your friendship and support.
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