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Christmas Appeal

Following on the success of this year’s Harvest Appeal we have decided to make a Christmas Appeal thIs year rather than, as in past years, link in with Advent and produce an Advent Pack.

The appeal is quite simple and very specific.  All donations will go to help children in India who are, or have been, suffering from Leukaemia. With­out help many children will not be able to receive the full treatment. Their families simply can’t afford it. They may receive the initial treatment free, but can’t afford the follow up drugs, it may be they require a time in hospital and need their family to be with them. Whatever the gap in their treat­ment we aim to fill it with help from you.

Children’s Cancer (mainly leukaemia)

There are many low-caste children in southern India suffering from cancer of one sort or an­other, particularly leukaemia. These are often treated in the main hospital in Trivandrum, under the loving care of Dr Kusama Kumary. For some sorts of treatment, the government health service will provide a basic treatment, but not the ancillaries that are necessary, or at least very useful, to make the treatment work. For instance, the government may pay for basic che­motherapy treatment for a child but this destroys
the patient’s immune system, and so they need antibiotics and immunisations to enable their bodies to fight off infections which come from all sorts of directions —infected blood transfusions, bugs in the air, the hospital itself. The health service does not provide this, and parents are often too poor to buy these essential medi­cines, particularly as they have to pay to stay in Trivandrum to help look after their children.
Your contributions to HHI’s Christmas appeal will help us meet these vital needs. We have set up a system whereby, each month, Dr Kusama gives Tom Suther­land a list of the most urgently needed medicines. Each month we send out £500 to pay for these. Tom then buys the medicines at a discount and gives them to Dr Kusama. All we need is the money to run it!

 The great advantage of this system is that medicines are distributed solely on the basis of medical need. There can be no suggestion of bias or favouritism. As a result, many children are able to get a much better standard of care in Trivan­drum’s General Hospital than would otherwise be possible.

You can donate via a link from the bottom of the menu bar on the right of this page, or via the gift aid form.

Please give this your consideration and ask your visitors to help too. They won’t be the first Christmas visitors to bring gifts to a child in need! That’s where it all began.

There is however, no need to restrict this appeal to Christmas, donations are welcome throughout the year.