Remembering Friends-3

Dear JVP,                                                                                                             18.4.2020

Greetings.

I have felt moved to write to you and share some thoughts of my grateful regards. 

There are two reasons to do so. The first being my desire to send a letter of gratitude to some friends whom I have known for a while to express my gratitude and appreciation for the encouragement I received from them. This was a desire I had since I turned seventy years. The second is because of a closure I needed to bring to some matters pending in my mind since I relinquished my position in the CMC council. You have been in my thoughts although I was not in touch with you.

Let me start with what I carry uppermost in my heart about you. I might have met you during your student days at CMC, but I have limited memory of that now. l vividly remember meeting you in Adelaide in your home and having long conversations on your situation at that time. I felt overcome by what you were going through, but what is even more outstanding in my mind was your inner resolve to face the situation, turning to God and waiting for Him to vindicate you. That was an indication of how much you were used to the habit of trustful prayer. Yes, God did vindicate you.

Your response to the invitation to come to CMC Vellore to be in the faculty was another instance where I felt that you considered the opinion of others prayerfully and sought God’s guidance. CMC gained by your return and I hope you too would have a sense of being used of God in your department and in the leadership of the institution. 

When I recall both these instances, your visit with Jayanti to the Developmental Paediatrics Unit at CMC come to mind prior to your plans to relocate at CMC. You mentioned to me how grateful you were for your training in CMC and the opportunity to work in the Mission hospital at Trichi and for the experience of advanced training in Australia. I sensed a resolve in your heart to offer your service for a worthy cause. You had other invitations to consider, but your desire to give a choice to join CMC did touch me. Subsequently, after you joined CMC, I do not remember having had any regular contact with you. But Dr George John with whom I had contacts mentioned to me how much you were an asset for the critical care service at CMC. He looked delighted and comforted about the leadership of critical care falling on your shoulders. His comment about you was, ‘JVP is clinically competent, an able teacher and communicator and is in the forefront in research. He is a leader in the making’. I used to hear from both our children who were students at CMC at that time, about the way the critical care in medicine in CMC was developing into another level of effectiveness under your leadership. I remember hearing you play the piano at St John’s Church. I knew that you had a cordial and caring relationship with your colleagues. 

Following my retirement from CMC, I continued to hear about the goodwill you generate by your leadership in critical care education and the organized way you got people to work together in a situation which was prone to be stressful, with patience and understanding. 

I came to have a first-hand experience of your skills when I came back to the council in 2012. Subsequently getting involved with the executive and the finance committee meetings gave an opportunity to sense the skills you carry with you in planning and designing changes. It was during that time the turn-around had taken place in the pharmacy following your leadership, leading to reorganization and upgrading of the facilities of pharmacy. It was a novel news of conversation among us, how the pharmacy became a source of income without adding any extra cost to the patients. In fact, drugs costed less at CMC. What was evident was that you got the team in the pharmacy come together to capture a vision of preparing for an On-line prescription process and reduce the waiting period to collect medicines. This when implemented in a progressive manner, became a model, because it involved handling a volume of prescriptions with precision and promptness. I remember your humble responses to public appreciation and your willingness to give credit to your colleagues and share the complements with them. 

Further contact with you was when the responsibility of financial matters of CMC came upon you. Every time the finance committee met, you had innovative ideas or plans to reduce cost, make the accounting more electronic, reduce the heavy human interface in the accounts department, bring external consultants to study the processes and structure which would upgrade the accounting practices, etc. I remember listening to your plans in private conversations and watch your lateral thinking skills to look at the enormous cash transactions taking place at CMC and turn them into prudent practices. You were a visionary to make finance operations efficient and accountable. I remember the finance committee members speak highly of your futuristic view of financial planning instead of managing the financial operations that they were used to. I was also touched by your Biblio-centric view of stewardship, equity and fairness in practices. Even when the salary revision related matters or enhancing pension for retired staff came up, you upheld a value base approach. To me, all of these were refreshing experiences. 

There were occasions when we had opportunity to talk about the future of CMC, Kanigpapuram and beyond, Christo-centric view of medical education and health care, faculty formation, etc. In all those conversations you conveyed an insight that to me was critically needed for CMC to engage the contemporary issue with understanding and foresight.

Once I heard from you how Jayanti had found work in her department stressful and there were partisan attitudes at the senior leadership level.  I sensed your soberness and tolerance of the situation, which would have been normally viewed as an unfavourable work atmosphere. 

I remember now, when the issues of extension of superannuation age got entangled in controversies or undergraduate admission process got subsumed by multiple pressures or when the financial matters of the Kanigapuraum project became a matter of concern, you held a considered view of the situation with openness for negotiation, consultation and conciliatory processes. You remained committed to find a way forward in a thoughtful way. You trusted in God to lead us on. 

I remember your visit to our home for a day. That was indeed kind of you. There were other occasions you created to share our common concerns. I am grateful to all of them.

When you were nominated to your current role of responsibility there were stressful situations prior to it, during the process and after that. In fact, the pressures were too many that I remember losing hope to find a way forward. Those were months of turmoil for me. 

I recall coming to your home on the day you were to take charge of your current responsibility, with Dr Sanjeeth Peter, which still remains fresh in mind. I was moved by Jayanti’s hospitality and your children’s togetherness with you in your new calling. I felt the nearness you experience between yourselves in the family. Your daughter’s confession of being comfortable to study medicine in a Government medical college still resonates within me. She appeared reconciled to the situation and welcomed an opportunity to be among students who were different than what she would have come across at CMC. Every time I think of the remark of your daughter, I am amazed at the sense of vocation she had found as a student.

There were a series of events following that, including the stressful nomination committee meeting of choosing an associate director, which made me realize that my role in the CMC council ought to come to an end, at least for a season. There were pressures that seemed disruptive and I sensed an effort to unsettle the peaceful transition of the leadership. There were voices in the council, which too looked partisan. Having sensed all of that, I knew that my time had come to move on. In my conversation with you, prior to that, you gave me the freedom to choose. I am glad that I chose the way I did.  I feel good that that you had the freedom to choose to move on since then in the way that you found it necessary to stabilise the council proceedings. 

I do have a regret that I did not have a chance to take leave of the Council, having been its member for about nearly 25 years.  From the time I became its member in 1985, the association with the council had given me an inspiration to reflect on health, healing and wholeness, which formed my perspectives and influenced me in my vocation. I feel grateful for the debates in the council and the deliberations which gave me a sense of direction about health care. I wish I had an opportunity to formally share this immense gratitude I feel,  in the floor of the council.

Excepting for this regret, most of the other stressful situations are behind me with resolution and some reconciliation. I established contacts with most people with whom I had disagreements and some of them have responded, which therefore have helped them and me to move on. A few, it is yet to be mutual. I feel grateful to have been possible to express my acceptance of them with the past behind me. 

I write this with a similar intention. You have offered a promising leadership to CMC currently, which it needed at a difficult time.  You made an earnest effort to carry forward a heavy burden that came upon you financially and organizationally on account of the Kanigapuram project. You brought a measure of a stability even in the midst of some challenges and seemingly difficult situations. Hopefully with the relocation about to take place in Kanigapuram in the coming months, you would have brought an opportunity to CMC to evolve into a new future. You did give your best and continue to do so even when the burden of the loans taken weigh heavily on you. Every time I hear someone talk about CMC, there is a reference to your effective leadership. We rejoice over your leadership style.

I wish you would find a way to revive the sense of vocation in the faculty in this transition time! Senor staff retreats used to be one way of doing it in the past. 

Thank you, JVP for your friendship and regards. It was good knowing you and having had an opportunity to be involved with you in CMC. 

As I grow older, I live with memories and gratefulness. I feel grateful to you and Jayanti for your kindness and encouragement. It is likely that I might have hurt you or disappointed you in some way. I apologise and confess that the last one year in the council was a difficult time for me. I needed time to recover from it. 

I am not sure if our paths would cross again. Let me send you good wishes and greetings for a life of fulfilment at work and home. You are an inspiration and a source of encouragement to others. You have many years ahead of you in active life and leadership positions. The Christin health care in India is likely to need a new perspective in the post-COWID scenario. There are many questions that would be new to us from now on. Even CMC would need to engage the future with new perspectives. I feel that you have skills and insights to be a voice of clarity and direction. May your presence in whatever areas you are involved, be like a leaven that would influence the community that you are part of. I hope CMC would take the initiative to help leaders of Christian health care to foresee the future through a get-together at an appropriate time!

Let me send you good wishes from Anna and myself for blessings and guidance in your life and calling. We send you our warm greetings to Jayanti and chidden. We have you inner thoughts as you lead CMC during a time of opportunities, challenges and transition in to a new role with the beginning of Kanigapuram campus.

M.C.Mathew