CHAI, Catholic Health Association of India, a network of more than 3.500 members with more than 1000 sister doctors and more than 21 million people being cared by, hold a two-day National Health Conference.
“Healthcare at the margins – Innovation for Quality Care” on 17th and 18th October 2019 at Holy Family Hospital, Okhla Road, Delhi. The event met around 300 hospital directors and administrators from all over India from the CHAI network.
Invited by the General Director, Dr Ermanno Pavesi attended the congress and gave his greetings also on behalf of the President of FIAMC.
Dear CHAI Director Father Mathew, dear Fathers and Sisters
It is a great honour and a pleasure for me to be here for the annual CHAI Conference.
For me it is edifying to learn all your activities in different fields of health care, what is possible only in a true Christian spirit.
It is amazing how some passages of the Gospel, for example the parable of the good Samaritan, radically have modified the conception of the causes of the diseases, the attention to the ill, the assistance to the ill and the health ethics.
The figure of the good Samaritan presents different aspects. On the one hand, it can be the model for those who assist the ill, and in many countries health volunteers are called Samaritans. On the other hand there are sacred images representing the good Samaritan as Jesus who takes care of the unfortunate, accompanies him to the hostel and entrusts him to the host. The task given to the host can characterize the ethos of Christian health care: “Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back'”. There is an invitation to health workers to do everything possible, even more than strictly due, because their commitment will be paid later. The good Samaritan announces his return, almost “a second coming”. « When the Son of Man comes in his glory […] the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I […] was […] ill and you cared for me » (Mt, 25, 31-16). For us catholic Health-Care Workers it is Jesus Christ himself who entrusts us the ill.
These principles have been applied already in the Apostolic Age with the birth oft the diaconia, and as the pope emeritus Benedict XVI wrote: «With the formation of this group of seven, “diaconia”—the ministry of charity exercised in a communitarian, orderly way—became part of the fundamental structure of the Church» (N. 21).
Pope Bendict continues writing:
„The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable. For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.[17] (N.25)“.
On behalf of the President of the World Federation of the Catholic Medical Associations, Prof. Bernard Ars, I thank you for your activity and wish you a fruitfull conference!
Ermanno Pavesi MD
FIAMC Treasurer
