Diocese establishing relief effort for India

A second surge of COVID-19 in India has the nation’s massive health system on the brink of collapse, with medical professionals struggling as they watch patients die daily.

Daily cases were averaging 378,000 as of early May and more than 20.2 million total cases had been reported. Death totals have topped 220,000 but most experts believe the country’s tallies are woefully underestimated.

The virus has also taken a toll on the nation’s men and women religious. From April through mid-May 168 priests and 148 women religious have succumbed to the disease.

From his office nearly 10,000 miles away, Father Tomi Thomas IMS, pastor at  St. Jules Church in Belle Rose and St. Elizabeth Church in Paincourtville, monitors the deteriorating conditions almost daily with an increasingly heavy heart. For Father Thomas, a native of Kealia, India, where St. Thomas the Apostle evangelized the area in 52 A.D., the pandemic has become personal, having claimed the lives of five of his fellow Indian Missionary Society priests and a former seminarian classmate.

Additionally, one of his four brothers contacted the disease in December but has since recovered, and several cousins have also survived the virus. 

“Thank God,” he said, relief apparent in his voice. 

Father Thomas said the first wave of cases began in early January 2020 and by-mid March the country was in lockdown. At that time, the prime minister asked people to stay where they were, which created unprecedented hardships, particularly because the country does not have an unemployment or financial assistance program. Immediately, the IMS order priests began to help feed the hungry and administer any additional aide they could.

The lockdown helped flatten the curve but earlier this year a new and more lethal variant of the virus surfaced and “it all spread just like that,” Father Thomas said. 

Although the past week has witnessed some leveling of cases in the larger cities, Father Thomas said the situation remains dire in the rural areas and villages, including his home village. Also fueling the surge is the vaccine is not readily available in India, a country with a total population of 1.4 billion people.

Adding to the complexity is COVID tests are only available in the metropolitan areas.

Father Thomas, who from 2011-2016 served as administrator of the Catholic Health Association of India and remains in close contact with administrators throughout the country, said the situation is only getting worse, with a shortage of hospital beds and a corps of medical professional on the brink of total collapse.

“What (medical professionals) are telling me is that in two to three weeks the health care system in India will collapse,” Father Thomas said. “The reason is first of all the numbers are too many; hospitals are all full.

“This particular variant is very lethal and the situation is so bad that it is killing, spreading readily.”

Even for those discharged, including a few priests, they have developed pneumonia and have died within a day of returning home.

“Secondly, how long can a nurse and doctor work?” Father Thomas said. “The human resource is going to be one of the (biggest) challenges they are going to face in a week or so.”

He said people are dying as they are being admitted to the hospital. Father Thomas recalled how one hospital director of a 2,000-bed hospital told him the hospital had 50 ventilators, all in use, but that in the next 48 hours he expected 40 of those patients would die.

Diagnosis, treatment and food are the three most critical elements to help stem the spread, and the IMS order is attempting to provide assistance in all three of those areas. Father Thomas said the medical kit will include a thermometer and oximeter, which measures oxygen saturation levels, as well as a steaming pot. The cost for that kit is $25.

The treatment kit will include medicine similar to Tylenol designed to fight colds and coughs.

Vitamins will also be included since “many of these people’s immunities are not high. We are trying to give them vitamins to get their immunity up.”

The cost for the medicine kit is $8.

Because both lockdowns have created such significant hardships, Father Thomas said food is in scarce supply, and some people simply do not have the money to eat what is available. So food kits are also being prepared for distribution which will include rice, a staple of India, spices, cooking oil, onions, potatoes, salt, soya ban and flour.

He said the cost for that box is about $12, which will feed a family of five for a week.

Father Thomas stressed the combined total for the three kits is less than $50.

“But the numbers are very large,” he said, adding that during the first wave the IMS order spent approximately $16,500 to assist 3,294 families, which amounted to 19,318 people.

He said there are five IMS organizations assisting residents. Combined they spent about $100,000 in 2020.

“The real feeling is fear, fear among the people because they are seeing people dying here, there,” he said. “This wave we have to reach out to every village, every family member in every village,” he added. “The reason is we are trying to mitigate the number of people going from their houses to the hospitals. That is why early detection is important.”

And this is where he is asking help from the people in the Diocese of Baton Rouge. Most important, he is asking for prayer because some of the priests and nuns he has spoken to are losing courage. 

“You can only take so much,” he said. “Millions of people are praying to give (medical professionals) that courage.”

The second is for monetary donations so that his religious order can buy the necessary supplies. He said physical donations cannot be sent because they will likely be tied up in the customs for two years.

Anyone interested in making a donation should visit diobr.org/helpindia.