Barbara is registered with the Canadian Society of Homeopaths; board Certified by the Council of Homeopaths and a member of the first Graduating class at the Vancouver Homeopathic Academy.  With twelve years clinical experience in Classical Homeopathy, including her Homeopathic Master Clinicians course, Barbara has maintained her clinic in Nelson, now working from her home based office that is surrounded by serene medicinal plant gardens. She has presented at the BC case conference, sat on N.A.S.H. board as Canadian representative, and graded exams for the CCH.

To date the most fascinating challenge has been to volunteer at Families for Children India, taking her own Homeopathic Pharmacy.

None of the above was adequate preparation for the magnitude of volunteering through Homeopathy in India!

Barbara Gosney tells of the experience in Tamil Nadu.   Families for Children in India an orphanage in South India, home to 350 children and young adults.

Her mission is to introduce Homeopathic treatment and bring a pharmacy of Remedies to the Medical teams, at present using western medicine and herbs.  It turns out -

Her life may be changed forever, but their lives will go on just the same.

Volunteers are accommodated in the guesthouse; a three bedroom bungalow, there are three other residents besides us volunteers, 3” black cockroaches!  Food is provided twice a day at the canteen, and it is very good, if you can adjust to curry for breakfast.

The village is basic, open sewers, and garbage everywhere, waiting to be turned over by goats and beggars and then burnt.  Crazy fast drivers shoot past blasting horns as I walk on dusty unpaved roads, taking me from one department of FFC to another, in temperatures of 33o.

Sarah a friend and graduate member of class 97 of the Vancouver Homeopathic Academy, now Co-director of the Orphanage, gives me a guided tour, and before I know it I am treating my first patient, a young boy in special care who has an extremely swollen eye, after Apis 30c a remedy made from a bee, he is back to normal the following morning.

It happened so quickly and easily, the staff just let me slip into the role I had so far only dreamed of.  The Doctors are not only accommodating but thanked me for the help too.

I get into a routine of doing the rounds morning and evening, to see what new cases have arisen, the staff bring me children they would like treated, or take me inside to see the patients. If new kids come in, they need to be isolated from the others, while a check for scabies, head lice, ringworm and impetigo, is confirmed.

Canadian Homeopaths think that Homeopathy is used everywhere in India, here in Tamil Nadu, near Kerala, Ayurvedic medicine is the most popular alternative. Actually only the goats at FFC are treated with Ayurvedic medicine,  no antibiotics, or hormones, as all the milk is used to feed the orphaned babies.

Homeopathy is well renowned and it is extraordinarily cheap.  Locals however have embraced the more expensive scientific western medicine.   I have a mission to remove the local epidemic of Molluscum contagiosum, one that I did not fulfill, even though I treat this complaint frequently here in Nelson, it remained illusive in India.

On the chronic side of disease, I compliment the intravenous antibiotics of a pneumonia case, Manoj is a sturdy little baby orphan, prone to pneumonia, and we have an epidemic on our hands, a Bronchial condition, beginning as a cold and going to pneumonia.  I suggest we can use a homeopathic remedy as well as the anti-biotic, and Dr Ravishanka, agrees, his own father was a Homeopath and his niece is currently a Homeopath.  We use a 30c Phos, but Manoj’s respiration increases, he is sucking his whole chest in, in an effort to breath, I re-prescribe with a 200c Bryonia, and within 24hours, Manoj has virtually fully recovered, showering us with smiles, he is off oxygen, but as only 4th generation anti-biotic are allowed to be used on the children here, he stays on the intravenous drip for two weeks more, this is the frustrating side for me, as the boy is now well, but we can’t risk the mutating strains of the bacteria if we where to cut the treatment short.

Alongside Manoj is a Hydrocephalus case, Sofica is about 3-4 years old, she cannot have a shunt put in, and so her head can continue to grow, they welcome a remedy to drain the fluid out of her cells.  This begins to work almost immediately, as the highly inefficient wraps of cotton used as diapers are constantly in need of changing as they soak onto plastic covered bed.  She is no longer suffering from Cri-encephalique, a piercing shriek, common to this condition. This is an indication that she is more comfortable.  Sophica has won my heart, she now responds to my voice and smiles, and moves her extremities as a sign of excitement.  I persuade the nursing staff to prop up the end of the mattress so she can see more then just the ceiling.  Another volunteer, a vet from Toronto donates an exotic green fairy for the cot rail and the staff get the idea and add a big Mickey mouse to the array, they have toys, and cloths, these things are brought over to India by the volunteers in the 50Ilb bag full.  There is more hope for Brahmagi, he too is Hydrocephalic, and he has a shunt, which drains the fluid from his brain.   He attends the Montessori kindergarten, in his fabric baby bounce chair.  I call him my ET as when I approach his cot he sticks out his index finger and makes contact.

He smiles and loves to play with his toy cell phone lying on his side in a comfortable position, I have put him on a remedy to try and strengthen and grow his little body, if the body can catch up, he stands a chance of growing into his head size and if Physio can help strengthen his neck to carry the weight he will be able to lead a more normal life.  FFC has a very good Physio department the Physiotherapist is enthusiastic, and works hard to get the kids as mobile and strong as he can, he asks me for advise on remedies, I supply him with some and, and notes on Materia Medica and other First aid Homeopathic remedies that he can use in his own dept.

It was a bit harrowing when I first saw Surika, as she only has one eye, no socket for the other just skin, she has Fraser syndrome, a rare syndrome, which has webbed feet, no voice box and complete fusion of one eyelid, (Cryptophthalmos) all are part of this syndrome, she also is a hermaphrodite.  She has the epidemic wheezing cough and she responds well to a remedy, she is soon out of the ward and back into small girls.  A house for 62 young girls, they all sleep together in one room, and are mischievous and happy, at FFC.  Now Surika is back at school she loves to spar and play, and talks to you in her strange rasping whisper.

FFC take all children, no matter their physical or mental complaint.  Some babies are found by the side of the road, abandoned at birth or at the railway station or left at the hospital, like Jayem, she is so adorable, under 2 kilo, when found by police, and brought  in to FFC,  she has an upper respiratory problem and after medical diagnosis it appears her low weight is caused by VSD, Ventricular Septal Defect, a hole in her heart, I do a lot of research and I feel relieved I have bothered to haul my computer with heavy separate hard drive all the way to India, as my soft ware Homeopathic program has been invaluable, she is one of the lucky ones alongside the 349 other orphans that find their way to FFC.  All the healthy under two year olds will go for adoption in India, and other children with smaller defect may be adopted abroad.  The remaining kids have a home for life or until they are 21 years.

As time goes on and more and more wards are filling with the upper respiratory chest complaint, I listen to my friends e-mail “Barb it may go against your religion but at times due to vast numbers you have to use a combination remedy”.  I go to the Homeopathic Pharmacy in Coimbatore and do just that, AF200 saved some time, and the bigger kids all started to overcome the coryza/bronchitis epidemic.  As a classical Homeopath it goes against my principles of Homeopathy to give a combination, but at this point it was very useful, as it contained the remedy Bryonia 200c that I had already used successfully for Manoj and a couple of others, I only had a limited supply with me.  I had taken a veritable Pharmacy from Nelson BC to Coimbatore, in Tamil Nadu, without any problems, as it is legal to cross international borders with Homeopathic remedies.  I also took some Materia medica, and my introduction to Homeopathy course, in order to hand over the treatments to someone once I left.  It turned out that the Dr.’s Ragemony and Ravishanka, where very willing to read over the reams of material in an introductory course that I had photo copied for them, and the nurses where starting to learn how to use a few remedies on their own, before I left.

A little girl comes in with clubfeet, no problem for the FFC medical team, they have access to surgery to correct that, but one of her kneecaps is missing.   Emotionally she is distraught with grief and fear, I give her Aconite 10m, and even I am surprised when on my next visit to the ward she is sitting up and taking it all in, completely relaxed.

It took me a little more commitment to venture into the special care and extra special care units. Half these children are bed ridden, or paralyzed and mentally challenged.   Here scabies and impetigo where my main targets with the correct remedy a case of impetigo dry and now heal over, not only that, but the child doesn’t cry when I visit her this time, nurse says “she’s better”, they tell me this a lot, when they see a shift and don’t need the remedy again.  I have since heard her Grandmother has taken her back home.

More cases of scabies come into extra special care, the staff has welcomed this change, the scabies protocol is working, and Dr Ragemony, is accepting any help he can get. He offers me a few other cases, due to the success of a decubitus case in the special care boys section, this young man with the sweetest smile, would be a typical beggar, if it wasn’t for FFC. He is paralyzed, one of his legs looks back to front, and he sits with his legs folded under him and shuffles around on his backside, well after 25 years or so his backside is wearing out, he has had a skin graft but he still gets these very deep wounds, the nurse uses a sterile dressing every day, as instructed by the director of FFC, Sandra, now in her 70’s, she has been directing FFC for 30 years, having started her vocation by bringing refugees out of Vietnam, she still holds the reigns of 350 orphans and 200 staff by text on her Blackberry.  With the help of Co director Sarah Pennington, who has been involved for 20 odd years?  In the field we have a volunteer Katie, from USA, who is in charge of the Blackberry on site, through which all communication is done daily.

There is a wave of middleclass unfulfilled woman who have it all? Volunteers; trying to fill the empty nest, by racing around the world and fund raising at home for these causes, but really FFC has done an incredible job all by themselves.  They welcome the volunteers, but are clear that we will get out of them more then the kids get out of us.  The kids are used to the goodbyes, turn your back and however popular you thought you where, another volunteer like you is coming right behind.  I say this to console myself, as everyone asked, “When are you coming back?” My time is up, no one is here to continue the treatments, the Nurses are equipped with there own Homeopathic boxes and a list of remedies and their uses.

How do I continue to contribute?  This is just the first step.

I have now opened a table at the Cottonwood market to sell Raw silk woven products, made at the FFC.  All funds go directly to the orphanage.

For more details go to http://www.familiesforchildren.ca

Barbara Gosney CCH, HMC, D.C. Hom. R.S.Hom C.

2102 Creek Street

Nelson BC

1-250-354-1180