 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
News – July 2005
Dear Friends and Supporters,
Thank you all again for your condolences on the recent loss of our daughter Natasha. Rob and I are coping well and moving on with life, as one does, after such a loss.
Foundations are being dug for the Love Without Boundaries Special Care Unit here in Beijing , so Rob is busy with building plans yet again. The plans will soon be posted on our website so please refer to it, if any of you would like to sponsor rooms in this new Unit.
It has been necessary to employ more nannies in our Special Care Unit in Henan Province so, over all, we now employ a total of 90 local staff members. It is nice to know that we can be a blessing to 90 families as well as caring for all the children.
Foster Home Shun Yi, Beijing
The babies
This month has been a very difficult one of us with 6 seriously ill babies in 4 different local hospitals. Our nannies have been stretched working overtime in not very easy conditions in some of the hospitals but we are rotating them so that they get as much rest as possible.
Fu Dong Yu and Fu Chun Yi who suffered post-operative complications from neurosurgery are still not yet out of the woods and some difficult decisions have to be made for them.
Fu Xiao Tian’s infection is now well controlled and has been discharged from Beijing United hospital into our care but the pressure in her head from too much fluid in the brain is increasing rapidly. She needs urgent surgery to put in a shunt and we are praying that this last attempt will be free of complications. We are still hoping and praying for the best for all of them.
GraceMarie had a bowel obstruction and had to have urgent surgery here in Beijing. Her surgery in Singapore has had to be cancelled due to this unexpected complication. So far she is doing well.
Dang Zi Run who is due for craniofacial surgery in Australia, was admitted to hospital here with a brain infection (encephalitis), but his prognosis is good and plans for him to go to Australia are still in place.
Luke from our Henan Special Care Unit born with neurological defects is in hospital receiving surgery. Other than Beijing United Hospital who has generously treated 3 of our babies for free, all the admissions to the local hospitals are not free so our “Medical fund” has been stretched to its limits (please see our urgent need below).
Dang Shan Qiang, our very blue baby born with a heart defect leaves for surgery in Singapore tomorrow. Please keep all these very ill children in your thoughts and prayers. We are doing the very best that we can. The other children in the Home are all doing very well.
We await the arrival soon of the adoptive parents of Adam Caleb Fu Ya Bo (Henan Province) and John Robert Dang Jian Xue (Shanxi Province).
Volunteers
This month again we have had so many volunteers either living with us or just coming in for the day or the weekends. Thank you all for your help.
Shun Yi Outreach Foster Program
We have another new family approved to receive a foster child in a few weeks time so this will bring us to a total of 9 families and 12 children in this program. This program is going very well so far. One new family to the program has proved to be very capable and willing to take in another child so this will happen soon.
Foster Home Sai Qi Fujian Province
We have been supporting this Foster Home for nearly 2 years now. It has become apparent that because of the increasing pressure of our workload here in Beijing and Henan Province, we have been advised to find ways to lessen our load as we are being stretched in too many directions, risking being ineffective in what we do.
We have decided to hand over this project to other people/organizations. The major organizations contributing to this Home via NHF are being informed of our decision. A visit will be made to Sai Qi in the middle of August and decisions will be made after that as how best to handle the hand-over of the accountability of donors’ funds, visits to Sai Qi and reporting on the children. All sponsors will be informed as soon as alternative arrangements have been made. For now, all your funds have and will be sent to Ms Xu as usual.
NHF Special Care Unit , Henan Province
3 more babies have been admitted to this Unit, one of them a little preemie, Olivia, who is doing well. Lyn G. was back there volunteering and did a wonderful job as usual. Currently Lisa M . is holding the fort. There are a total of 9 babies there and we are nearly full. We have had to employ more staff to cope with the number of children needing to be cared for.
The total number of babies who have been cared for at the unit since the beginning of this year now stands at 36. No babies have died this month though it has been a struggle to get some of them to eat to keep them alive.
We have had a meeting to discuss our policies regarding how we handle babies with very poor prognosis. It is so hard to make these decisions as our hearts are to save lives. Learning and deciding when to let go of a dying child is the most difficult of all decisions, but it is something that we have to deal with constantly. These last couple of months has been such a painful but necessary learning curve for Rob and me but we are still searching for wisdom in this area.
Our Thanks
- We thank Hope’s Heart Foundation for responding to and funding part of the surgery fees for Luke. Sometimes we cannot wait to raise the funds for a child needing urgent surgery so we thank you for responding immediately.
- Thank you to the 2 families who responded to our need for a foster family in Australia for Dang Zi Run. The plans regarding who will escort him are still being discussed.
- Thanks to all those who have brought in much needed medical supplies.
- We thank International School of Beijing for the donation of outdoor rubber tiles. These will be used in the construction of our LWB Special Care Unit.
Our Needs
- Medical Fund: HELLLP!!!! Our biggest need is for funds to pay for the many urgent surgeries that the children have required this month.
Below is a list of the children, their medical conditions (in non-medical terms as far as possible) and the cost, in US dollars, of having them treated.
- Luke: Repair of spinal defect and shunting of hydrocephalus – $2,600 more needed.
- Dang Zi Run: Treatment for brain infection – $800.
- Grace Marie: Bowel obstruction and repair of anus and vagina – $2,000.
- Fu Xiao Tian: Replacement of shunt for hydrocephalus – $2,500.
- Dang Shan Qiang: Cost of flight to Singapore for heart surgery – $1,500.
Please remember that these are all life-saving treatments, without which these kids will/would have died.
With gratitude,
Joyce and Robin Hill.
“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
|
| < Previous page |