Our dear Sanyasi has died

Sanyasi was with us in the Pickford Memorial Hospice for almost a year.

Brighter Future found Sanyasi, his brother and mother, in November 2012. Sanyasi and his family lived in a little village in Vizianagaram district. His father was an electrician and had died of AIDS in 2010. Sanyasi was 13 at the time. 
Sanyasi's mother took him to the doctors in 2009 because he had diarrhoea. It was confirmed that he had HIV. Sanyasi was started on TB treatment, a 6 months course that must be 'observed', ie. given by health professionals. He took the treatment for only 2 months. It is fairly common for TB patients to drop out of treatment as they begin to feel better and many are lost to treatment for this reason. In Sanyasi's case it was poverty, and ignorance, that prevented him getting treatment.
Sanyasi's mother had to find work to feed herself and her two sons. She could not afford to go to Vizianagaram to get the drugs for herself and her children. 

Sanyasi was started on another 6 months course for TB, by the government centre, when he came to our hospice   I remember that we were all amazed to find out that Sanyasi was 15 years old. He was so small and thin. Like so many HIV sufferers he had TB. His very muddled government records revealed that he had started TB treatment (at least twice) previously and failed to complete the courses. Sanyasi  was almost certainly MDT-TB, multi drug resistant, and unable to respond to the usual  TB treatment. 

Sanyasi was also co-infected with fungal skin infections, had hardly any hair - indicative of his malnutrition and vitamin deficiency. After a year on Brighter Future's protein rich diet and vitamin supplements, the skin infections were much improved.

 Sanyasi was unable to lie down to sleep or rest. He had developed the habit of sitting up and holding onto some adjacent support, be it a bed head or a railing, so that he could sleep sitting up. His breathing difficulty could be heard and felt as he sat on my knee  watching some of the Sue Davies Sports Ground event.

He smiled happily when we gave him his first toy to play with and also at Christmas when he asked for, and got, a remote controlled car!

He liked oranges, mango juice  and Victor made sure he got whatever he asked for.He returned to our hospice even thinner and more wasted. The hospital had told his mother to take him home to die. Brighter Future staff took it in turns to stay overnight at the hospital with him and provided for the meals and whatever  needed buying.

Sanyasi's mother stayed with him in our hospice whenever she could,   especially recently. She is also suffering relapses from her own HIV. 

His brother,Chakravarthi, was able to see him every day as he was in our Thompson House home in the same Shanti Nivas site. Sanyasi used to tell his 2 yrs younger brother, Chakravarthi,  how important it was for him to go to school. and to study well.

Brighter Future made and provided  all the burial arrangements for Sanyasi. 
Chakravarthi has gone to stay with his mother for a while while they prepare for the religious festival that follows about two weeks after a death. 
A tree will be planted to remember Sanyasi in the Shanti Nivas Memorial Garden.

[Two million people die from MDT-TB every year. In 2009 the Global TB Control reported that one in four TB deaths were HIV related and that less than 1% of MDT-TB sufferers were getting the expensive drugs they needed, especially in resource poor countries.  Many also fail to respond to the  recommended treatment.]

All children safe from cyclone Phailin

At 6pm on Sunday Victor confirmed that all Brighter Future children and staff are well and not affected by cyclone Phailin which hit Southern Odisha. Our Pastor's brother lives in a colony near Behrampur in the cyclone path, so he will take a team of our staff with him to help out at the colony. They will take food, cooking oil, matches and drinking water packets.
The surge in sea level meant that many fishermen in the Srikakalum District lost their nets and mud huts - their livlihood.

 Round thatched huts and dried fish in a Srikakulam village Victor and I surveyed in 2006.

Political rumblings in Andhra Pradesh

It was decided by the ruling Congress party  that Andhra Pradesh could follow the fashion created by Bihar and other states and be cut into smaller pieces. This is referred to as 'bifurcation' in the delightful Victorian English that is still used, especially in legal circles.

BUT there are more than 5 million people living in the part that does not include the state capital of Hyderabad,who do not want dividing from the rest of the state into the new part to be known as Seemandhra. There are also a large number of residents in this coastal Seemandhra who want to be a third area called Ryalseema.
Various ministers of the A P state are on hunger strike and because the local Vizianagaram minister is thought to have changed sides in the argument. Some local people poured onto the streets and threatened his properties in the area.A curfew was declared.

All over the state electricity supplies have been disrupted so health services, buses railways and petrol supplies came to a standstill. The big government hospital in Visag is running on generators that burn kerosene at enormous cost.The general mayhem has been going on for 4 days now!

Victor says that the Rainbow children can't go home for the Dusshera religious holiday, to their colonies, because there is no transport to get home on.  If they stay at DMC and Rainbow there is the problem of water and food, as farmers cant bring food to the markets.  Shanti Nivas and Prem Nivas have water wells that have the newly installed hand pumps to draw water and both are growing some vegetables.

The central government will have to intervene and all will return to normal.

A blind lady was brought to the Hospice.

The lady in the red sari is called Gouri. She is completely blind, with cataracts in both eyes. The lady who is standing with her  very kindly brought her to Brighter Future at the suggestion of our Prem Nivas Nurse. They got talking on the bus when Nurse Laxmi was taking some of the Prem Nivas children to the government centre to get their HIV treatment. Gouri is HIV+ so Nurse Laxmi  had probably seen her at  the Government ART centre.

The two ladies live in Gajapathinagaram,  the nearest large village to Prem Nivas. Victor said that Gouri lives in a ‘toy’ hut, for which she pays 100 rupees a month to the lady who is in the photo with her. I think it must be a very small hut or even an outhouse as room rents normally cost more than 1000 rupees. Victor didn’t ask Gouri whether she  gets a pension of 200rp a month or whether she begs for her living.

Victor has spoken to the surgeon who does cataract operations for us on our leprosy patients. He has agreed to operate privately on Gouri in ten day’s time. As Gouri  is HIV+ he will perform only her operation on that day and the operating theatre will be closed for the rest of the day.

A new boy arrives at the hospice.

Abraham

 Abraham is from Bapuji Leprosy Colony.
The early members of the Brighter Future's Family of Sponsors and Donors may remember that in February 2005 we adopted a very neglected leprosy colony.   Brighter Future was able to bring some help to the elderly, and mostly very deformed, residents.
 Brighter Future immediately set to work on the essentials - water, food and medical care. We made the open well safe to use. We installed a new, deeper, bore well so that there could be clean water at all seasons. We supplied basic food grains to supplement their routine begging. Brighter Future provided a man to dress the patient's open sores and teach them how to care for, and avoid, these wounds.

The next big step was to provide safe and hygienic housing to replace the dilapidated, snake infested and broken rooms they were living in. The money to build new houses was raise by supporters of Brighter Future in the UK. This was Brighter Future's first foray into building houses for leprosy patients. It attracted the attention of the local government and The Leprosy Mission and they both now co-operate in building homes on other leprosy colonies in our area. Brighter Future liaises and supervises this housebuilding.

You are probably wondering what this has to do with Abraham!  
 His parents lived in Bapuji colony and were very grateful to the couple who donated the money to build their house. The couple also remembered Prasad and his wife at Christmas. They were overwhelmed to receive the first card - they had never been sent a letter from anyone before. Prasad and his wife have now died, Abraham is their son.

Our dear little Sanyasi is surviving against all the odds.

He has been so very ill with a lung infection.This on top of his TB and HIV, asthma and skin infections. The government hospital in Visakhapatnam, the only place that severely ill HIV/AIDS patients can be admitted to, sent him to a TB hospital. There he was treated for a few weeks before being returned to the main hospital. 

Sanyasi's mother stayed with him whenever possible.  Brighter Future staff took it in turns to visit Sanyasi and stay with him. The hospital then told Sanyasi's mother to take him home and prepare for his death.

After a few days at home Sanyasi came back to our hospice. His mother has to go out to work and there is no one to look after Sanyasi.At our hospice we have full time staff, Sanyasi's younger brother, Chakravarthi, can come and keep him company when he is not in school. Sanyasi's mother is welcome to stay with him for as long as she likes.

We are so thankful that he is still alive, despite being so painfully thin now. We give him whatever he fancies to eat. His favourite requests are, oranges, mango drink, tea, biscuits and chapatis!

From Bees to Support for Six

One of  our new sponsors wrote to me to say that as she had a bad back, she had given up bee keeping. She sold some of her equipment and wanted to give Brighter Future the £250 raised. It was about the time when our young people were qualifying to get into college. 

Victor told me that Brighter Future was going to find it difficult to find the £250 to £275 a year per student that going  college entailed.

 That was when I had the idea of asking our 'bee' lady if we could use her gift to finance the fees of one of our students. She is going to support Swathi during her Computer and English studies. 

At that time I was also able to make contact with a friend whose email address I had lost. Sheer coincidence! I sent her the July Newsletter and as an Open University student herself, she very generously  sponsored two students - Vasavi and Sandeep.

Another lady read of our dilemma  and has offered to sponsor Anil in his  '10+ 2'  (like A level) studies.

A local Bury St Edmunds resident friend regularly holds sales in his tiny front garden. He had a larger one the other week, for Brighter Future. Sometimes he grows plants to sell, at other times he sells things people give him. The £259 he has raised will support another student, Jyothi, in her 12th year. 

A friend, from many years ago, was willing to sponsor Swathi's degree course. Swathi wanted to be a nurse but as she is HIV+ this is not possible. Swathi is, therefore, spending one year learning computer studies and written English.  My friend will instead support Sanyasi, another of our young students.

We are so thankful to these good people who are giving these marginalised young people, from leprosy colonies and station platforms and HIV/AIDS orphans, the chance of further education.