Pirgacha Bethany Ashram

Dear All:

I am pastor of St. Paul’s Parish under the Diocese of Mymensingh here in Bangladesh. We have a small clinic with 20 beds where we do deliveries, snake bites and treat general patients. There are two Senior Nurses, one Junior Nurse, mid-wife. The nurses are all registered with the Bangladesh government and have many years experience treating patients and delivering babies of all faiths. Many pregnant, unmarried girls come and they face death in the homes if they become pregnant. Stephen Chambugong, trained by the Jalchatra Leprosy Program under the Damien Foundation is in charge of the clinic. Last year we treated over 350 snake bites, had many deliveries and treated many sick people.

            Boston England financed the clinic for 40 years but the ladies say they are too old to keep up the financing of the project. Last year we treated over 4000 patients, mostly pregnant women, snake bites, rabies, and various tropical sicknesses. We have a lot of kalazar, malaria, and many tropical diseases that we treat. Last year we had 32 kalazar patients in Pirgacha. The midwives are trained in three different nursing schools: Baptist, Hindu and Anglican.

Herewith is the budget for one year to run the Bethany Ashram clinic:

TK.    300,000.00: Medicine and food

            30,000.00: Caesarians and doctor referrals

          400,000.00: Staff pay

            50,000.00: Travel to doctors and villages

TK. 780,000.00  US $10,000 per annum (One US$ is about Taka 78 now).

This is a good project and saves many lives and stops much suffering for the poor Muslim, Hindu and Tribals. St. Paul’s Parish is under the Mymensingh Diocese. The Parish is Garo Tribal (Tibeto-Burmese), Muslims and Hindu all use the clinic.

Fund can be sent  to the Director, Holy Cross Mission Center; P.O. Box 543; Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-0543 for Pirgacha mission. E-mail:hcmc@nd.edu

Sincerely,

Rev. Eugene E. Homrich, CSC

Pastor, St. Paul’s Chuch,  Mobile Phone: 01713003523

Dist. Tangail, 1996, Bangladesh.

E-mail:Pirgacha@bdcom.com