An update from Mungeli Hospital
Anil Henry – India
Dear Friends,
Greetings from Mungeli and yes we do still exist.
I am sorry that I have been quiet in the past few months. We have had a terribly busy time with no real time to get my act together and write.
We are all busy here and the heat is growing day by day, but the work continues. We hardly get the feel of it as the day goes by as fast as it came.
We have had many things happening at the hospital. It is hard to imagine that we have been able to do so much in the past year. I will be sending my yearly report to you to share with others, as I did last year.
We have completely finished the upper floor of the ward and now it takes care of seven patients in the ICU, 14 private rooms, 1 staff sick room, and 22 general ward patients.
I had emptied one side of the general ward on the ground floor for renovations, but we have had such an influx of patients that now we have more beds in this area as well.
The laundry that I was talking about for a while is now finalizing and the roof is just about on. I have also given the order for the large washing machine and hydroextractor. This will be a great boon.
Our new construction of three patient relative facilities has been almost completed. The first building is the cooking house where people will have facility to cook on gas burners or have a cooked meal for 10 cents (of rice, lentil, and vegetable). Those that the still want to cook with wood can do so too. The two-story building is the place for all the relatives of patients to rest and to keep all their belongings in lockers. The third building is all the toilets and shower rooms.
One of the main problems that I was facing was that we only had one operation theatre. So we have almost completed the renovation of the theatre complex and will have three nice clean and new operation theatres. These are being tiled along with storage areas and beautiful aluminum doors. Along with this is the central sterile supply department along with three autoclaves, one of which is a big new one, which we got about three months ago.
Besides that, we have automated our lab with the cell counter for hematology and a auto analyzer for biochemistry.
The X-ray department is now equipped with two new x-ray machines, one is a 300 MA large machine with fluoroscopy facilities and the other is a portable 100MA machine to wheel around to the wards and OR.
In the community, we were in need of a pastor to be resident in Mungeli and also double in as the chaplain for the hospital. We requested the bishop to post a pastor here in Mungeli and we would pay the salary from the hospital. The parsonage also was in shambles and we agreed to rebuild it and give that to the church.
So today we have a pastor who is responsible for both the community and for our hospital, taking morning prayers in the chapel each morning and visiting patients who want pastoral care.
The Bishop also wanted us to take over the school as it is in shambles. It was not the top of my priority at one time, but now I feel if we can catch them young, this could be a sure way of making sure that this mission of health and education will go on for many years to come as well guide and nurture our young.
So I have agreed to help. The major thing for the school this year is that we are planning to get a school bus for the new year in July. This should be something, which is new and dynamic for the school. We have also got some computers for the school and have started looking at a master plan for the school as now it runs in a very old bungalow.
The things which we are moving towards getting now in the near future are: an incinerator (to get rid of all the hospital waste), laprascopic and cystoscopic equipment, houses for staff, especially doctors and a new principal, dorm for 20 nursing students to come from a neighboring hospital (Tilda) as they need to be around more patients.
Where our help comes from and how we go about doing what we do is God’s doing. We begin each day in faith and know that what we do will come in faith.
The Tsunami hit India hard as it did others. We were in Sri Lanka for 10 days after that and it was an experience that we will always find hard to believe. The hospital here at Mungeli, as small as it is, was proud that it was one of the highest contributors amongst mission hospitals, to the Tsunami relief fund being set up through the Church of North India.
So even though we are small, we have a vision and we have a God who makes all things possible. We thank you for the help and support that you give us and pray that God will give you strength to continue your ministries in your part of the world so that people will truly know that we have a God who Lives and Cares.
Blessings,
Anil Henry
Anil works with the Synodical Board of Health Services of the Church of North India. He serves as Acting Director at Christian Hospital, Mungeli along with his wife as Senior Medical Officer.