August/September newsletter from Sarenga Dear Everyone, It is now several months since we wrote to you, but we spent 9 weeks in Scotland between the end of May till the end of July – hence our silence from Sarenga. We had a great time in Scotland, with both of us getting good locum work, but also the chance to relax with family and friends. We did not get to see all the family and equally because of work were unable to see lots of our friends. We are truly grateful to Ail and Ann who made us completely at home in their home in Lenzie.. It is not an easy thing to open ones home like that, even to friends. When Shubhro was locuming in Ayrshire, Sheena also let her home be ours never knowing when I may turn up to visit, or whether Shubhro may go back to Lenzie for an evening. Having that sort of freedom and not being made to feel a burden or invade anothers space is an expression of genuine love – no need to say more. We returned to India on 27th July, and almost immediately set off on the two day train journey to Vellore in the south of India. Kenny David, one of Shubhro’s classmates from CMC Ludhiana is now Professor of Orthopaedics in CMC Vellore. His wife Judy also a doctor is doing amazing work in Rehabilitation in CMC Vellore.

Kenny met us at the station and we spent a very special couple of days in their family with their two boys Alan and Brian. Our purpose in this visit to Vellore was to tell the Christian medical students there about KSN Hospital, about the kind of people, their needs, the work going on in Sarenga and the opportunities for service and witness in KSN. As is the case all over the world, the majority of medical

students and young doctors are keen to establish their career, and have the misconception that working in a rural mission hospital will leave them lagging behind from their peers who are going straight into postgraduate training. In Sarenga, they would have the opportunity to get a rich clinical experience with support and training in Paediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynaecology. We also had the pleasure of meeting Dr Liji David again – you may remember she was working with us in Sarenga before and she is now doing her MD at CMC Vellore. She is clearly happy and confident and doing well, for unlike many of her colleagues she has a vast clinical experience to draw on from her time in Sarenga. Elisabeth has just been on another Life saving skills training course in Delhi. The idea of such training programmes is that we train groups of around 15 specialist doctors for three days, and then work alongside them to train medical officers and midwives from the rural

districts in the different states of India. Even today a mother dies every 3 minutes in India, and the majority of these deaths occur in the rural areas and are preventable. Having trained these 15 specialists, it was possible with their help to train around 240 doctors and midwives. These 15 specialists came from all over India, from Rajasthan, Bihar, U.P., M.P., Orissa and Tamilnadu and were at different stages in their careers, some only in their 20’s. There were two youngsters who stood out in particular, and with the support of good clinical seniors to guide them they are now working independently in rural areas and plan to stay there for 5-6 years. They are both making a difference in the rural communities where they work, saving lives in clinical situations that their Professors and Academic leaders will not be seeing. Thus, although they face hard work and challenges daily, their clinical experience and expertise is second to none, and they are already streets ahead of their peer group who have chosen to remain in the cocooned environment of the higher medical training institutions. Life in Sarenga is good – we received a very warm welcome back. We don’t know if you can see the rain ‘stotting’ off the ground in this picture, but it had only been raining for 5 minutes when we took the photo, and you can see the water is already lying 2-3 inches deep. We never had the flooding that has been in surrounding countries, but we had several good downpours, and the rains are continuing unusually late this year, which means we have to be ever cautious for snakes. We were so happy to be able to meet our batch of ANM nursing students again. They had taken their final exams in July, and all passed with high marks, but they came back to KSN to say goodbye, and to thank their teachers here. These ANM students are chosen by the government to do this 18 month training programme, after which they will return to their villages all over West Bengal and work independently in their village Primary Health Centre . They are all Hindu girls, but during their nursing training they have the opportunity to come to chapel and learn about Jesus. It is a great sacrifice these girls have made – to leave their husbands and children for 18 months, but during these 18 months they have become part of the KSN family, and they have drawn strength from this. Shubhro and I were really touched by their gratefulness

and their obvious sadness at saying goodbye, but what warmed us most was their request to take back home with them a copy of our hymnbook. In a few weeks time, when they receive their certificates, they shall each be presented with a Good News Bengali New Testament and a hymnbook. You can imagine the joy and encouragement this has been to us, and we pray God will continue to speak to each of these girls that they may grow in a relationship with Him. We also had the pleasure of welcoming Suzanne Daniel, a medical student from St Georges Medical School London. Suzanne came to spend two weeks of her summer holiday with us in August. It was not much of a holiday for her – she worked very hard ! Suzanne has already done her first degree in Psychology, so in addition to her work with us in the hospital she gave several lectures in Psychology to the GNM Nursing Students with Sister Sangeeta Gorai helping her with translation. Though only with us for such a short time, Suzanne made a real impact and we really appreciated her being with us. On her return to London Suzanne received her July exam results – she had not only passed, but had been in the top group of her class gaining a merit pass. Well done Suzanne – we wish her all the very best for the years to come. In the middle of August Dr. Poddar joined our team of doctors. The timing was good, since it was at this time that Dr. M Das (our only full time Medical Officer) was offered a Medical Officer post at Sarenga Primary Health Centre. We have been so grateful to Dr M. Das who so capably held the reigns during our absence in the summer. Dr. Das’s association with KSN goes back over many, many years – he first worked here in 1990, and has been here on and off since that time. It is because of a real concern for the Sarenga people, that at times of crisis he has returned to work in KSN. He has kindly agreed to continue helping us out at the hospital covering emergency on call, when he has time off from Sarenga PHC. This appointment will also help build bridges and strengthen the relationship between our local PHC and the KSN Hospital. We are grateful to God for answering our prayers more than we could have imagined. We now have four young Clinical Nursing Teachers who have just qualified in B.Sc.Nursing from Kolkata. They are each interested in pursuing careers in different branches of nursing, one in Community work, one in Paediatric Nursing etc., but all of them are full of enthusiasm to teach and also to learn. They themselves have obviously received an excellent training in Kolkata and are fully conversant with the concept of evidence based practice. Shubhro and I believe, that with these girls help we shall be able to gradually

introduce new protocols and guidelines and thus standardize and improve the clinical service in Sarenga. We are excited that our vision for the future may be realized with the help of girls like these. We continue to pray for like minded young doctors to join the team, and we believe they will come in His time. Many of you will be aware from our previous letters that the Fullarton Church in Ayrshire Scotland kindly gave us a very generous donation of Rupees 140,000 for the specific purpose of building a proper road from the Maternity ward to the operating theatre. This was completed in June, while we were in Scotland, and now, during this monsoon season, for the first time, the wheels of the theatre trolley do not get stuck in the mud and the patients have a much less uncomfortable ride to theatre for surgery. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL OUR FRIENDS IN FULLARTON CHURCH. We also wish to acknowledge with real gratitude the huge financial contribution from The Sudbury Rotary Club which has enabled us to proceed with upgrading of the antenatal clinic – the building was unsafe. Not only did the roof leak badly during the rains, huge bits of masonry would fall with the potential of killing staff and patients working underneath. Only by the grace of God was no-one seriously injured in recent years. The roof has been completely removed and rebuilt, and work continues so we hope to re-open the clinics in this new building in a couple of weeks time. In the meantime the antnenatal and under five clinics continue to be held temporarily in Dr Goodall’s old bungalow on the edge of KSN campus. John and Eunice Attwood visited Durgapur Dioceses in early August – both are Methodist ministers in the north of England, and Eunice is presently the Vice- President of the Methodist for 2010-2011. Both Eunice and John have a medical background, Eunice having worked for many years as an ITU Sister, and John having worked as a radiographer. So they were interested to visit us in KSN. Had it not been for their meeting Bishop Probal Dutta when he was speaking at the Methodist conference in the UK earlier in the summer, Eunice and John would not have come to visit. They had been intending a similar visit to Kenya to see the work going on there, but at the last minute those plans fell through – they were at a loss as to what to do instead, when one of Eunice’s friends prompted her to remember Bishop Probal’s invitation to Durgapur Diocecse. by asking her ‘Has nobody else recently invited you to any other part of the world………… We could go on with more stories, but must stop for now, since its already 30th September and time to mail this to you all. We are grateful to you all for remembering us in thought and prayer, because that is what makes things happen for the people here.

Hospital statistics for the last four months:

PARTICULARS June 2010

July 2010

August 2010

September 2010

General Out-Patients Department 433 374 512 627

General Patients treated at Samadi Clinic -

- - -

Tribal Clinic attendance -

- - -

Ante-natal Clinic (biweekly) First Visit Re-Visit

779 192 587

676 130 546

629 144 485

469 111 358

Under-Five Clinic 383

321

407 468

In-Patient Department 1364

1449

1615 1601

Daily average treated in inpatient dept. 45.46

46.76

52.09 53.36

Bed Occupancy 39.88

41.00

45.7 46.81

Patients treated at Eye OPD 79

77 76 270

Patients treated at Samadi Eye Clinic Cataract Surgery 21 15 4 63 Eye Surgery (others) 19 0 0 2 Dental Clinic New Revisit

- - -

-

Maternity Inpatients 109 128 124 144 Normal Deliveries 98 101 104 108 Caesarean Section 7 27 16 31 Forceps Delivery - - 1 2 Ayushmati Scheme (Mother) 71 97 90 104 Ayushmati Scheme (Children) 71 97 90 104 Radiology Department 73 80 81 90 Laboratory Investigations 1797 1905 2003 2829 Ultrasonography - - - - ECG 11 11 10 15