Plan To Send Aid To Indian Hospital

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31195, 20 October 1966, Page 2

Plan To Send Aid To Indian Hospital

In 1900 Dr. Ida Scudder, an American, began a medical practice in one room in the town of Vellore, in South India. Today her modem hospital of 1000 beds has a medical college, a school of nursing, and a training centre for medical auxilliaries.

Vellore Christian Medical College and Hospital receives finance from private patients, but without support from grants and individuals all over the world the centre, regarded as one of the finest in the East, could not be maintained.

Welsh-born Dr. Gwenda Lewis, now on the staff of Princess Margaret Hospital after 17 years at Vellore, is seeking support for a Friends of Vellore society which will meet for the first time next month.

“The many research programmes at Vellore attract grants, but 20 per cent of the daily maintenance costs must come from supporting mission organisations and friends of the hospital societies,” Dr. Lewis said yesterday. "The Australian Friends, which has not been going long, has already done a tremendous lot and is at present supporting two nurses at the hospital.” Hospital staff is drawn from India, Great Britain, the United States. Canada, Australia, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland. Dr. Lewis has already had several Inquiries from New Zealand doctors who would like to work at Vellore.

As early as 1914 Dr. Scudder or “Aunt Ida” as she was called by the staff, began training Indian doctors and nurses. Students now include Christians, Moslems and Hindus from distant hill

tribes and growing industrial centres. “Of course, an entrant must have a certain academic standard, but sometimes an applicant from the countryside where there are few doctors will be accepted even if his scholastic record is lower than a city student’s.” First-hand experience has shown Dr. Lewis that Indians are capable of attaining high professional qualifications. “My successor at Vellore was one of the hospital’s graduates. He was very highly thought of when doing his post-graduate study as an anaesthetist at Montreal, which is a world renowned centre for work in anaesthetics,” Dr. Lewis said.

“Fifty per cent of the students at Vellore are women,

and there are many fine hus-band-and-wife medical teams, for most women continue to practice after marriage.” “The help New Zealand has given India, during this last year particularly, is wonderful, but I feel the society is a more direct, personal way of helping the Indians to help themselves," she said. Indians were doing this from Government to village level, although a visitor to the country might feel disillusioned and disheartened at the apparent lack of progress.

"But they have accomplished so much since independence,” she said. "There are now good roads, much new industry, Irrigation and agriculture schemes, heavy traffic, vehicles and a wonderfully cheap air-conditioned railway system.”

Improving health standards remained a tremendous problem and Vellore was doing much to raise the standards with research projects. Reconstructive surgery for leprosy patients was pioneered at Vellore and a team, headed by women, is at present developing supplementary protein foods.

The first meeting of the Friends of Vellore will be held on November 14 at 8 p.m. at St. Margaret’s College. The Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt. Rev. W. A. Pyatt) will be the chairman.