Day 7 January 25th 2023

Today we have been tying up various loose ends before Nik and Maria, our film making friends, went back to the UK. Edmund is staying on for another few days.

We were delighted to have a visit from Sharm, who received a kidney transplant 15 years ago which is still going strong, helped in a great part to ongoing help from HHI. He needs to keep taking immunosuppressive drugs to keep his body from rejecting the donated organ. These are expensive for an Indian at about £50 a month. Our contribution of £20 a month makes all the difference between getting by and dying.

Sharm

Then it was a chance to catch up on Shibu’s patients. He now has six or seven that he looks after, mostly road traffic accident victims. Whilst we were unable to photograph them, Shibu was more successful and we now have their stories and photos.

Shibu

Sometimes it is hard. We visited Sooraj, a 17-year-old lad with toxoplasma gondii. Chemotherapy is needed monthly and his father has sold his land to pay for the £15,000 cost so far. It is looking increasingly likely that he will need a bone marrow transplant at a further cost of £20-25,000. I sadly had to say that we couldn’t make a significant contribution to this.

But there was jackfruit for lunch. So all is right with the world.

Sooraj

Jackfruit