Rourkela diocese, Religious bring hope to Covid patients

By Purushottam Nayak

Rourkela: Religious priests and nuns have joined the diocese Rourkela in Odisha state to dispel fear and depression from Covid patients while treating their disease.

“I find God’s compassionate care and service from the sisters, priests, doctors and nurses,” says Etwari Barla, a Covid patient in Catholic Mission Hospital at San Nuagaon.

The 40-year-old Catholic woman, told Matters India that the hospital management’s “loving and kind service instills hope, mental strength and encouragement in our life to fight corona virus.”

The Catholic religious men and women joined the diocese to open the Covid-19 Care Centre at the Church hospital in San Nuagaon in Odisha’s Sundargargh district.

Vilma Norohna, provincial of Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit, or Holy Spirit sisters, in Jharsuguda, says people have fear, worries and anxieties regarding the coronavirus pandemic. “Besides medicines and precautions they need psychological counselling to face this dreaded virus boldly,” said the nun. who works fulltime inside a Covid patients’ ward in Jharsuguda.

Sister Noronha mainly gives spiritual and psychological support to the patients. “I also extend support to the staff of the Hospital” that currently houses 18 Covid patients, she told Matters India.

Sister Bernadette Kerketta, provincial of the Handmaids of Mary congregation that manages a Covid care center, says, “Our poor and underprivileged people need our compassion, love, care and concern besides medicines.”

Bishop Kishor Kumar Kujur of Rourkela says they formed a Covid-19 Action committee in the diocese after noticing an increase in Covid-19 patients in Sundargargh district. “We decided to treat the Covid-19 patients at initial stages in the Catholic Mission Hospital San Nuagaon from May 12.”

The center also aims to treat priests and nuns who develop Covid-19 symptoms. The move comes in the wake of the Church in India losing more than 300 priests and nuns in the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

“If any fathers, sisters and faithful are infected with or showing the symptoms can come to the hospital avail for possible care,” the bishop told Matters India. He said the hospital would refer serious patients needing Intensive Care Unit to other Covid-19 hospital run by the government.

The bishop asserts that Covid-19 care center at the Catholic Mission Hospital is a noble undertaking of the diocese’s Covid-19 Action Committee.

The 58-year-old bishop of Odisha’s largest Catholic diocese, thanked the hospital management and staff for their generous support. “I also thank Maria Pahar Association which raises the fund for this sublime purpose,” he said and added they need doctors, nurses and the support staff to efficiently manage the center.

“Humanity knocks at our door for help,” the bishop said while appealing the Catholics in the diocese to help with money or “whatever way possible in this sublime and noble work.”

The Covid-19 Action committee has distributed pulse Oximeters and thermometers to parishes for the regular check up of those quarantined at home. The committee has also planned to convert government facilities into Covid-19 isolation centers.

Father Chacko Thomas Korattyil, manager of Rourkela’s St. Arnold’s English Medium School and a member of the Covid Action committee, says all religious men and women working in the diocese collaborate with them.

The 69-year-old Divine Word priest noted “a lot of good will” among major superiors of congregations working in the diocese for the Covid care center.