1200 Apply For 60 Places

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31376, 23 May 1967, Page 18

1200 Apply For 60 Places

There were 1200 applications for the 60 places available to medical students at the Christian Medical College* Vellore, each year, Dr. J. S. Milledge told a meeting of the Friends of Vellore in New Zealand, last night While the 1000-bed hospital provided general and specialist treatment for patients from throughout India, its main task was instructing staff for work in missionary hospitals, said Dr. Milledge, who is a physician specialist in respiratory medicine. Seventy per cent of the student places were reserved for those sponsored by the 60 groups in the world which supported the hospital, and about 65 per cent of all those who trained at Vellore went into missionary hospital work, he said. Dr. Milledge presented an illustrated talk, with slides showing aspects of the hospital’s work. This ranges from treating up to 1500 patients a day in the outpatients’ clinic and nearly 1000 a day in mobile roadside units, to open heart surgery and the most modem treatments available for tetanus which Is prevelent in South India. A simple respirator developed by Dr. Milledge to assist tetanus patients to breath while undergoing a treatment which produces total paralysis for a period of two to three weeks, has cut down the need for round-the-clock supervision of these patients.

Hospital life differed from that known in New Zealand in that relatives provided an important service he said. They performed Simple nursing duties, and often provided food for the patients. The hospital had to provide food for only about one-third of the patients.. The nearness of family members also meant that it was rare to hear a child crying. Although the hospital was large, and provided sophisticated treatments, on the whole it was dealing with simple problems and simple people who were very poor, he said. Showing slides of the typical village house and its occupants, he said that treatment was given free to those who could not pay.

Opening the meeting, the Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt Rev. W. A. Pyatt) said that the Friends of Vellore hoped to train and assist medical staff from New Zealand who wished to work in Vellore.

Dr. Milledge also showed slides of an expedition he made to the Himalayas with Sir Edmund Hillary, and of the physiological research he did at high altitudes. He will soon spend a year in San Fransisco studying respitory medicine at high altitudes, under a research scholarship.

Mails For Greece.—The Chief Postmaster at Christchurch (Mr M. E. Wilson) said recently that all mail for Greece was now being delivered promptly.