|
Dear brothers of SLOBA,
Following the recent council meeting when Fr. Simon Lam has raised the concern
of Salesian Society pertainig to our actions done to Fr. P Deane might somewhat
not in line with the normal practice of Salesain way, I have made an appointment
to meet Fr. Peter Ho, Provincial of Salesian Society in China together with Fr.
Simon Lam & Chan Kwok Kei.
The major debating issues were :
1. Fr. Deane is a Salesian under the Salesian Society jurisdiction and all his acts should be in line with the normal practice of Salesian Society. The life in the society is a missionery leading the normal average class of living, i.e. never the upper class of living. Fr. Deane has chose such way of living in his early ages.
2. No one should give any specific treatment or arrangement concerning the living of a Salesian without the permission or at least the awareness of his superior.
3. Specific/too luxurious treatment to Fr. Deane was not only violating the normal practice of Salesian Society but also caused jealousy to other priests within the society that caused lots of embarassment to Fr. Peter Ho as a Povincial of Salesian Society in China.
4. Some of our previous (goodwill) actions done to Fr. Deane have created some adverse effect to the Salesain Society in Dublin that caused further difficulties to Fr. Ho especially people were under the "impression" that Fr. Deane has not been well taken care of by the Salesian Society. The Website WWW.Deanetrust.org" listed several correspondence that somewhat illustrated this issue.
During the meeting with Fr. Ho, we (Fr. Lam, KK & myself) endeavoured to explain
to Fr. Ho concerning our motive & intention of treating Fr. Deane as good as we
can to let Fr. Deane to have a better living in his final days. We understand
that Fr. Dean's major problem is simply because of he Pakinson's disease that
caused the physical body to deteriorate.
We explained that the funding in the trust have all been contributed from the
personal pocket money of the old boys who are real good friends of Fr. Deane and
nothing to do with the funding of SLOBA. In fact SLOBA is considering to start a
Trust Fund for the priests in St. Louis who might be in need.
We stated the application of the trust fund is simply in 3 ways:
- As Fr. Deane could not move around freely by himself, we like to hire someone, say a nurse, to assist him during daytime to walk around the place ( in the garden etc.) he is staying now so as to give hime more physical excercise.
- To hire a physiotherapist, say for twice weekly, to do somekind of massage at the back to give Fr. Deane some sort of pain relief.
- To have a sum standby to meet the expenses of any specific medical treatment to Fr. Deane whenever needed. Basically, we wish to give him the best available medical treatment if required.
Resolution of our discussion:
- Fr. Peter Ho thanked our devotedness, loyalty and the great friendship
given to Fr. Deane, a Salesian priest.
- He has no objection to our actions No. 1 & 2 above-mentioned.
- Concerning the item above item 3, Fr. Ho stated that while he has no definte objection, prior to arranging for anything, we must:
- obtain the consent/approval of the local in-house doctor.
- Approval must be obtained from the head of Salesian Society in Dublin.
- Any future arrangement or treatment ( excludig those friendly & goodwill visits) in favour of Fr. Deane should at least advise to Salesian Society in Hong Kong.
- Don't spread around the news or impression that Fr. Deane is illy treated which in fact not.
- Fr. Ho recommended that we can buy a 'specific bed' that automatically can do the massage for the patient which he feels good to Fr. Deane.
- Fr. Peter Ho also requested all the past pupils to refer and get the advice from Fr. John Foster who should understand what's the best to be done to Fr. Deane.
I shall keep you advised of developments, if any.
Wish you all the best!
Peter
(Response posted by the Trustee of Father Deane Foundation Fund Trust)
|
