GOAN DOCTOR PROVED HIS METTLE IN PORTUGAL!
IT was so wonderful meeting up in Lisbon with the renowned Goan surgeon Dr Caetano Winston Gracias and his wife Mitsi Oliveira Pegado Camelo. Neither are strangers to Ribandar. Dr Winston alias Wini was associated with our Ribandar Hospital till he moved to Portugal, while Mitsi is the great granddaughter of then Conde de Ribandar — whose magnificent grandiosely designed house still stands out on the slope next to our church.
Dr Winston, who hails from Loutolim, has continued the legacy of the illustrious Gracias family. His Grandfather Dr Caetano Gracias was a Portuguese physician, botanist and historian. He was a member of the Portuguese Academy of Sciences and wrote the about “The Sacred Flora of India, Mythology of Indian Plants.” Dr Winston’s father Dr Renato Gracias – Knight of St Sylvester was the Health Officer in Pune at one time.
Caetano to his colleagues in Goa and Winston in Portugal, has been a very successful surgeon at Hospital Santa Maria and private hospitals around Lisbon. Highly respected and very well known in the Goan community and by others in Portugal. With his medical acumen he has proven to be “the surgeon with the golden hands.”
Very kind, simple and a down-to-earth person obviously putting all his patients at ease. It is commendable to see this surgeon also play the violin at functions and he is also involved in Goan social activities, keeping the culture and involving the next generation to partake. It is so exciting to see our Goans across the world who have excelled in their fields and making us all proud!
–Aires Rodrigues, London
SAD TIMES
Dear Sir, the living conditions of people have become so vulnerable that they have been reduced to mere puppets of the system. In recent times we have seen that the people witnessed a series of crises that are dividing humanity. The series of bomb blasts, the terrorist attacks, the attacks on minorities, suicides by cotton farmers are some of the negative impacts affecting humanity.
Then there’s the hidden violent agenda by way of abortion, euthanasia, domestic family violence too are a step towards breaking our relationships with God. The global economic crises have suddenly broken the hopes of many workers as today they are unemployed and desperately looking for hope.
Today we need to be spiritually challenged and hope is the stepping stone towards leading to God. Though all these factors break hope to such an extent, that due to depression, many people will turn violent and go against God and many may even take measures to drown their lives in alcohol and drugs, or even commit suicide.
Today we need to foster peace and reconciliation and peace does not depend on hopelessness of life, but it uses it to build a staircase towards building of a new better world and society. It encourages affected people to foster reconciliation and help in the reconciliation of current crises. Keeping God in the centre, our hopelessness finds a way to the path of love, truth, justice and reconciliation.
This is a call to all these affected by the current crises to initiate a dialogue with God through prayer to build faith and to foster peace for reconciliation. We need to keep ourselves occupied and people should network to support each other in all the ways they can. Thanking you in the service of Christ.
–Cajetan Peter D’Souza, Mumbai