Rayong (Fides Service) – “There
would be much to say with regard to our relations with the Thai
health system in which we are leaders in as far as care for children
with AIDS is concerned. I am happy to say that our children have
been baptised and many have made their First Holy Communion and
Confirmation. They know how to pray and sing and they are proud
to follow the faith proposed by ‘daddy’, Father Giovanni.
All of them have lost their parents and for one reason or another
they have been rejected by their families and entrusted to us by
the social assistance institute” Rev. Giovanni Contarin, director
of Rayong Centre told Fides something about his experience of working
with children with AIDS.
“When I began in 1996 to take the first children with AIDS
for care at our Centre I could not believe my eyes to see these
little innocent ones get worse every day and die and that we were
unable to help them.
They have AIDS, people said, and they are destined to die. We treat
them with special love but without much hope, we must be resigned.
I don’t know how I managed to survive during the first year
when ten of our children died. The day a baby dies is the saddest
day for everyone at the Camillian Centre, even adults in the palliative
care department found it hard to accept the death of a child and
some would have even offered to take the child’s place. The
funeral of a child, I recall the last three, Sonia, Patricia e Nat,
is both sad and joyful because we celebrate the life of a new angel
.
In 1996 I had no computer or access to the Internet…having
been in Thailand for 11 years I had not come into contact with the
new antiretroviral treatment which was having excellent results
in America and Europe. One day I met a retired medical doctor from
Switzerland who had settled a few kilometres from the Camillian
Centre …it was as if the heavens had opened! While visiting
the centre he offered to treat Oon a lovely 10 year old girl who
followed me everywhere seeking safety in my arms and like many children
she was terminally ill. Oon already had mouth infections, loss of
hair, skin infections and breathing difficulties. We had already
made an appointment to amputate a little finger as soon as gangrene
started…her arms and legs were as thin as toothpicks. Alan,
as the doctor was called, said “Father I would like Oon to
grow up and to have a family like me, with a husband and children”.
Surprised and amazed I put myself in his hands. He told me of his
doctor friend in Switzerland head of a department for infectious
diseases in the canton Hospital of Geneva…. We began to communicate
via fax…and in the meantime we started triple antiretroviral
therapy, with a proteases inhibitor…new medicines not used
in Europe…. Costing 1.000 US a month…that was the beginning
of a story, which changed my life. This poor priest/nurse, became
a pioneer in the field of medical treatment for children with AIDS
in Asia.
Today we care for 31 children aged 4 to 17 most in discreet health
conditions and from this year 21 of them attend outside schools.
One child after another, one difficulty after another…always
with the hope of seeing our children smile for love of life. To
obtain antiretroviral drugs, I created an international network…
I smuggled tonnes from India…and more recently I struggled
for local production…all efforts that allowed thousands of
children to receive this treatment which this year has become the
pride of Thailand.
Not to mention the visits/excursions which I organised for the children
to undergo blood tests in Bangkok…the schemes I organised
to get them at a good price and studies I had to undertake so as
not to stop when I heard: “there is nothing to do for children
with AIDS ”.
Internet and collaboration of Doctors without Frontiers from Belgium,
with offices and programmes in Bangkok, helped me. And obviously
the environment we have succeeded in creating is the best for a
child who has to learn to fight and understand the illness. How
much effort to make Oon take pills large and small…but now
she teaches the others to do it like a game…and she still
remembers the little friends lost on the way. Oon is now 17 and
she wants to live so much, she has changed therapy three times and
has always had a viral charge of under 50 units. She goes to 2nd
grade secondary school after passing exams of elementary classes,
which she never attended.
My children bring vitality and love to the palliative treatment
department and to the sadness which AIDS brings to the world, and
this is the power which makes me a Eucharistic gift.”
See more information
www.thebody.com;
www.camillianrayong.8k.com; www.camillian-rayong.org
Link: http://www.fides.org/ita/dossier/aids_bthai01.html
http://www.fides.org/ita/dossier/aids_bthai02.html
(AP/GC) (3/4/2004 Agenzia Fides)
|
