MEDICAL TEAM FROM BANDUNG

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30688, 2 March 1965, Page 2

MEDICAL TEAM FROM BANDUNG

A husband and wife medical team who work together in a Christian hospital in Bandung, West Java, are at present visiting Christchurch, at the end of a tour of New Zealand sponsored by the National Council of Churches.

Dr. Esmira Siregar is the doctor in charge of the maternity section of the Immanuel hospital, and her husband (Dr. J. Siregar) is the hospital’s medical director. “He is my boss —but sometimes he cannot be too strict,” said Dr. Esmira Siregar last evening. The maternity section of the hospital had 50 beds, she said, explaining that clinics run in towns and villages by qualified midwives provided pre-natal care for most women in Indonesia. These midwives and their assistants also carried out most of the deliveries, with cases in which difficulties were expected being referred to a

doctor, and if necessary sent to a hospital. The midwives’ clinics also provided a post-natal mother and child-care service in villages, she said. A fully qualified midwife did four years nursing training, and spent two years as a qualified nurse. If she then had proved herself capable, she would be allowed to enter the midwives’ training course, which took a further two years, Dr. Esmira Siregar said. A number of Indonesian women enter the medical profession, 10 per cent of the students in medical schools being women. Youthful Family

Dr. Siregar has a 17-year-old daughter and two sons, aged 15 and 13. Though in hospital a European style of uniform was worn, most older Indonesian women still wore their traditional dress, she said. Last evening Dr. Esmira Sirega was clad in an attractive “kain batik”—a graceful full-length skirt garment made of hand-painted cloth, worn with a toning lemon “kebaja,” or blouse—and a warm woollen cardigan. Seventy degrees might constitute a pleasant summer warmth for New Zealanders, but for Indonesians, used to temperatures of between 90 and 100 degrees, it was distinctly cool. In New Zealand, which the couple leave on Thursday, the couple have visited hospitals in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch.