Happy new year when it comes. This is a fairly pally post for the festive season, so it doesn't contain much news about work!
We had a lovely Christmas with my (Adam's) family, who are with us until the 5th January. Jo and mum did an amazing job of dinner, with 2 roast chickens cooked in a combination microwave oven! This was accompanied by perfect roast potatoes, greens, carrots, and gravy!! This was followed by apple crumble, which was delicious. NO COMPROMISE! It was extremely nice to have family with us, and there is already the prospect of some of Jo's family coming out next year!! The day was also spent with a medical student from London, who really fitted in well. He was extremely generous, and bought me a webcam as a present!! Unfortunately he subtley tried to find out if I already had a webcam first, and I thought "that's a greeeaaat idea", and promptly went out and bought myself one on Christmas-Eve!!! OOPS
The webcam means that we can now show people live footage via SKYPE, which is a web based telephone/videolink service, which is free to download, and costs the price of your internet service provider's calls to use. This means that it is effectively FREE if you have broadband. Visit http://www.skype.com by clicking on this link to download the software (make sure you download the latest version (2.0) which supports webcams). It is very user friendly, so don't be scared! and takes only a few minutes to set-up. In order to find us on SKYPE, our username is 'adamclanblack', and our region is 'India'. Once you have sent us an invite to skype you, we will each be able to see when the other person is on-line, and we can call with the click of a button! Alternatively you can call our landline to ask us to go online (0091 22 25399949) It is such a great tool for those abroad!
Andi and Sheba Eicher have gone to Mussoorie for a week to visit his parents, and attend a wedding. This means that I am holding the fort at JSK until the 4th of Jan., and my family leave on the 5th. God has been very gracious by providing a particularly quiet spell at work. We have no in patients at the moment, which means that I have the possibility of a lot more free time. Please pray that this will continue, so that I can spend as much time with my family as possible.
Amazingly Jo and I have not actually been to visit Mumbai proper since we arrived 3 months ago! this means that we are planning to enjoy exploring the Bazaars with my family. They left today to stay In Mumbai for 2 nights, and we plan to join them tomorrow for new year's eve in a hotel.
Cameron has also offered to babysit for Jo and I one night, so it will mean that we will be able to go on a date, which will be the first since arriving here (and probably the last for a while, given that the new baby will be arriving very soon!). We have been fairly careful to protect as much 'family time' as possible here, but it will be nice to have some 'A&J time' as well.
Please pray for us to make the right choice as to where we choose to settle for 'Church'. (I put this in inverted commas because we are all 'Church' all the time, aren't we! What I mean is that we could settle in the right body of believers on a Sunday, in order to share fellowship, worship, serve, grow, and be held accountable!!). At present we are really torn between a Baptist Church which is a Rickshaw drive away, but is more what we're used to, or the Brethren Church which meets in the Hospital. This is a great group of people who we love and respect, but the brethren ethos is a little different to what we are used to. I think that we could maybe be used more at the brethren Church, and it would be great to go to somewhere local.
On the baby front, Jo now only has 24 days to go before her due date! Added to this is the fact that Alistair came 8 days early, so it is fairly likely that we will have another addition to the family in only a couple of weeks!! Are we prepared? Probably as well as we can be, but your prayers would also be appreciated on that front as well. Pray especially for a quick, pain-free delivery, as they do not offer any pain-relief in labour here!!
Anyway, I generally try to keep these letters brief, so that people don't tire of reading them, so I think I'd better sign off now!
God bless, Love Adam, Jo, Alistair and Bump
Friday, December 30, 2005
Monday, December 26, 2005
Christmas Eve
Here we are in an outdoor pool on Christmas Eve! Inga (Adam's sister), Alistair, and Adam's mum are in the foreground. Adam's brother Cameron is catching a frisbee in the background, and Adam's arm is to the right of picture. It is strange being in such warm weather at Christmas. It makes it seem very un-Christmassy! There is also very little consumerism here which is nice. 
Christmas Shopping!?
Here's dad and Alistair out shopping for christmas lunch. Mum's just phoned to remind me not to forget something or other. We had some "real good chicken". It was the first time Jo had cooked Christmas lunch, and she did a great job. We had My mum and dad, brother and sister with us, as well as Duncan, the medical student from the UK. A few of us weren't that well on Christmas day, but it was a great day!
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Thanks Duncan
Christmas greetings to you all.
There is a medical student from London here at the moment. His name is Duncan, and he has his own blogger website called Bombay Nights. His first degree was English Honours, and so I have borrowed a piece he wrote on his website about Lok Hospital (with his permission). I think it hits the nail right on the head, and is so much more eloquently put than I would have managed!!:-
"Lok hospital does treat the poorest Harijan (untouchable) caste, or Dalits (oppressed) as they are also known, and it does treat those who cannot afford treatment, as well as link with the aids and village healthcare work. But there is more to it than that.
Firstly, the primary vision that Dr Alfred has is underpinned by an understanding that it is God who ultimately blesses us with healing through the physician, not simply the physicians skill, and this is his witness to the patients – that they will only get better by God’s grace.
Secondly, in India, most of the healthcare access is through GPs, who refer a patient for secondary health care, like in England. However, supposing a treatment the patient 1000 rupees at the hospital – the hospital will take around 600 of that and the GP will take around 400 rupees. This leads to a lot of endemic corruption, with GP’s requesting unnecessary procedures and investigations at the patient’s expense to line their own purses. This has the inevitable consequence of making healthcare unaffordable for the poorest Indians. But more significantly it leads to a 2 tier system of care since it is not in GP’s interests to help the poorest gain access to the overstretched and limited state-run medical care since they do not receive the same remunerations.
Lok hospital does 2 things to counteract this. It will not take referrals from GPs but sees people directly. It provides the best level of healthcare services to paying residents of Thane without deceiving them or recommending unnecessary care. Thus it has a growing reputation spreading by word of mouth, for excellence and integrity in the local community. It uses this revenue from wealthier patients, who come because of its reputation for honesty, to reduce its own overall running costs so that it can maintain a free healthcare service for those who cannot afford it. This model has another major cultural significance: if it were only to treat Harijans, apart from making it difficult to maintain financially, it would also mean that it was looked down on as a second-rate hospital by locals of higher caste helping to perpetuate a 2 tier system. What Lok is doing is giving the same quality of care to the higher caste individuals as to the Harijans, but significantly they see the same physicians, wait in the same rooms and are not segregated off into separate wards. Thus it is culturally more effective at promoting equality of treatment.
Thirdly, and most importantly with respect to the gospel, Lok DOES take referrals from other Christian NGOs (including their own Aids project) working amongst the poorest and most needy in the community. This opens vital doors for these workers – they are able to go into a household, and as well as sharing the gospel and ministering in their own capacities, they are able to see potentially sick people and offer referral to Lok for free assessment and treatment. This makes many people more willing to open their homes to Christians, and thus many more hear about Jesus than otherwise might. Additionally, not all the staff are Christian, so there is the witness to them – there is a meeting every Sunday night in the basement of the hospital for patients, where the Gospel is preached directly and clearly. Dr Alfred invites all the patients who are able to come, and many do, perhaps hearing the gospel for the first time. On his ward rounds, I frequently hear him entreat patients to give God thanks for their recovery or encourage family to ask the Lord for blessing on their loved ones or give thanks for blessing already received.
So I hope that gives you a better picture of what is going on here – it might, at face value, seem less worthy than simply using the hospital for the poorest Harijans, but it is a much more thought-through, culturally and spiritually aware strategy. In fact, plans to expand the hospital to over double it’s current size are well underway, with a new site and building plans already in place – work commences in February. The total funds needed for this work are £2 million GBP with payments being made on an instalment basis during the building work. Half of this is planned to be met from the hosptial’s own funds, but half will need to be raised from benefactors and charitable giving."
If you are interested in giving to this, please email tony.sergeant@icc.ac.uk. He is principal of ICC in Glasgow, but is also a member of the Thane trust board, the British arm of the charitable organisation which supports Lok hospital. He will be able to provide you with details of how to give.
On a personal note, we are all very well, and especially excited about my parents and brother and sister coming to Thane for Christmas and New-Year. On the baby front, Our bump now has it's head pointing in the right direction which is a real blessing. We did not want to contemplate a C-section here in India!! I think that we are getting a little excited now, as the last two friends of ours who had babies delivered 8 and 4 weeks early respectively. We now only have 5 weeks to go (OR LESS!!)
God bless, Adam, Jo, Alistair and bump
There is a medical student from London here at the moment. His name is Duncan, and he has his own blogger website called Bombay Nights. His first degree was English Honours, and so I have borrowed a piece he wrote on his website about Lok Hospital (with his permission). I think it hits the nail right on the head, and is so much more eloquently put than I would have managed!!:-
"Lok hospital does treat the poorest Harijan (untouchable) caste, or Dalits (oppressed) as they are also known, and it does treat those who cannot afford treatment, as well as link with the aids and village healthcare work. But there is more to it than that.
Firstly, the primary vision that Dr Alfred has is underpinned by an understanding that it is God who ultimately blesses us with healing through the physician, not simply the physicians skill, and this is his witness to the patients – that they will only get better by God’s grace.
Secondly, in India, most of the healthcare access is through GPs, who refer a patient for secondary health care, like in England. However, supposing a treatment the patient 1000 rupees at the hospital – the hospital will take around 600 of that and the GP will take around 400 rupees. This leads to a lot of endemic corruption, with GP’s requesting unnecessary procedures and investigations at the patient’s expense to line their own purses. This has the inevitable consequence of making healthcare unaffordable for the poorest Indians. But more significantly it leads to a 2 tier system of care since it is not in GP’s interests to help the poorest gain access to the overstretched and limited state-run medical care since they do not receive the same remunerations.
Lok hospital does 2 things to counteract this. It will not take referrals from GPs but sees people directly. It provides the best level of healthcare services to paying residents of Thane without deceiving them or recommending unnecessary care. Thus it has a growing reputation spreading by word of mouth, for excellence and integrity in the local community. It uses this revenue from wealthier patients, who come because of its reputation for honesty, to reduce its own overall running costs so that it can maintain a free healthcare service for those who cannot afford it. This model has another major cultural significance: if it were only to treat Harijans, apart from making it difficult to maintain financially, it would also mean that it was looked down on as a second-rate hospital by locals of higher caste helping to perpetuate a 2 tier system. What Lok is doing is giving the same quality of care to the higher caste individuals as to the Harijans, but significantly they see the same physicians, wait in the same rooms and are not segregated off into separate wards. Thus it is culturally more effective at promoting equality of treatment.
Thirdly, and most importantly with respect to the gospel, Lok DOES take referrals from other Christian NGOs (including their own Aids project) working amongst the poorest and most needy in the community. This opens vital doors for these workers – they are able to go into a household, and as well as sharing the gospel and ministering in their own capacities, they are able to see potentially sick people and offer referral to Lok for free assessment and treatment. This makes many people more willing to open their homes to Christians, and thus many more hear about Jesus than otherwise might. Additionally, not all the staff are Christian, so there is the witness to them – there is a meeting every Sunday night in the basement of the hospital for patients, where the Gospel is preached directly and clearly. Dr Alfred invites all the patients who are able to come, and many do, perhaps hearing the gospel for the first time. On his ward rounds, I frequently hear him entreat patients to give God thanks for their recovery or encourage family to ask the Lord for blessing on their loved ones or give thanks for blessing already received.
So I hope that gives you a better picture of what is going on here – it might, at face value, seem less worthy than simply using the hospital for the poorest Harijans, but it is a much more thought-through, culturally and spiritually aware strategy. In fact, plans to expand the hospital to over double it’s current size are well underway, with a new site and building plans already in place – work commences in February. The total funds needed for this work are £2 million GBP with payments being made on an instalment basis during the building work. Half of this is planned to be met from the hosptial’s own funds, but half will need to be raised from benefactors and charitable giving."
If you are interested in giving to this, please email tony.sergeant@icc.ac.uk. He is principal of ICC in Glasgow, but is also a member of the Thane trust board, the British arm of the charitable organisation which supports Lok hospital. He will be able to provide you with details of how to give.
On a personal note, we are all very well, and especially excited about my parents and brother and sister coming to Thane for Christmas and New-Year. On the baby front, Our bump now has it's head pointing in the right direction which is a real blessing. We did not want to contemplate a C-section here in India!! I think that we are getting a little excited now, as the last two friends of ours who had babies delivered 8 and 4 weeks early respectively. We now only have 5 weeks to go (OR LESS!!)
God bless, Adam, Jo, Alistair and bump
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