Donate to Help Susan Paul

Jai Baba all,

I am Kathy Hill in Ellora, India, and I am fundraising for my dear, much admired, Sister-In-Baba, Susan Paul.

I am writing this on 15 February.

For many years, Susan has been dividing her time between India and Asheville, NC (and recently, Venice). About six weeks ago, Susan was discovered on the floor of her Meherabad apartment, badly injured from a fall, and from lying there for about three days. She has been in the ICU ever since, mostly at Ruby Hall Clinic in Pune, and we are expecting her to be hospitalized for about one more month. She has needed several surgeries and will be having several more.

Susan will be eighty in May, and has devoted her life to Meher Baba's service, mostly through conventional nursing (for 57 years) and by offering free acupuncture and Chinese herbs as a Doctor of Chinese Medicine. During visits to India she worked tirelessly as a volunteer health care provider in Meherabad, and for an NGO in Pune. During the early days of the AIDS crisis she was instrumental in helping many, many AIDS and HIV patients, providing a new treatment that was highly effective and mostly unknown. She rescues dogs, too!

Susan is a planner and does have some insurance to cover some of the costs - most of the hospital bills, for instance. However, she did not buy repatriation insurance. We have an estimate of $36,000 for a stretcher on commercial flights to get her most of the way home (no stretcher on the commuter flight to Asheville, on which first class seats only recline 5 inches), ambulances at both ends (the rehab in Asheville is all set), with a doctor as her escort. Having looked at many options, we like this idea. A doctor could provide good pain management all the way.

If Susan recovers enough to handle the transfers and other needs of the 24+-hour trip, we could book her and a companion on Business Class with lie-flat beds. However, she just started sitting in a chair today, which is difficult and painful due to the nature of her injuries, and we don't know if she and a friend could handle the trip. Two escorts might be needed, if volunteers can be identified.

All this, plus ambulances, also will be costly. We are paying for hotel rooms for volunteer bedside helpers, and our budget for incidentals like that is blown.

So I am appealing to you, on Susan's behalf, to donate what you can to her urgent financial needs. I am hoping Baba groups will hold fundraisers? In any case, please contribute what you can. (And please do not forget to remember her in your prayers, in any case!)

Future updates will only be posted here.

All funds received will be used to pay Susan's medical and transportation expenses. They are going directly into her own bank account.

For Team Susan: Amanda Paul, Elisabeth Iler, Vicki Galler, Emily Robertson, Kathy Hill, and Vani Dayal.