Missions still needed

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32562, 23 March 1971, Page 6

Missions still needed

About one in every 20 hospital beds in India is in a Christian mission hospital, Brigadier Vera Williamson, a Salvation Army nursing officer, said in Christchitrch yesterday.

And it would be many years before the-Government of India would be able to take over the staffing and running costs of all the mission hospitals in the country. Mission hospitals are, however, preparing their Indian staff members to take full responsibility. Brigadier Williamson, who has been matron at > the Catherine Booth Hospital in Nagercoil, South India, in charge of the nursing service and school of nurse training since 1945, recently handed over her work to her deputy, an Indian male nurse.

In addition to basic nursing qualifications, this man has certificates in specialist nursing from St Peters and St Pauls Hospitals, London, and a diploma in teaching and administration from the Christian Medical College, Vellore, South India. He has been her deputy for 11 years and is in charge of Salvation Army nursing sisters from several Western countries, as well as Indian nurses. NURSE TRAINING

The Catherine Booth Hospital, run by the Salvation Army, has 360 beds which are full most of the time. The staff includes seven doctors, a large number of qualified nurses, and 80 Indian student nurses. As well as being a general hospital it has special departments for plastic, orthopaedic and ophthalmic surgery. The medical superintendent is a specialist in eye diseases from the United States.

Nurse training is considered an important part of the hospital’s service. “Christian rnissionaries were the pioneers in nurse training at hospitals iti India and they will be needed for many years yet,” Brigadier Williamson said, “but they have to realise that they must make themselves dispensible by teaching Indians to replace them, and be willing to work under Indian staff and in close co-operation with them.”

The Indian Nursing Council, an advisory board established soon after independence (1947), has set very high standards for nursing training. Many Indian nurses have university degrees and the number of skilled nurses is increasing. “It is not lack of ability but lack of numbers, as yet, that makes it necessary for hospitals to be run by overseas missions while we are lyanted in India,” she said. On Indian doctors her comment was: “I know many very fine Indian doctors and there are some excellent medical schools in India, such as the Christian Medical College at Vellore, which is known world-wide. But some of the other medical schools do not have the same standards.” HOSPITAL SERVICE

The Catherine Booth Hospital takes patients from all walks of life, the great majority of whom are Indians. A daily rate is charged patients who wish to have a private room, but ward patients are charged a small weekly rate of about 50 cents. A destitute is given free service.

“We never shut anyone out,” she emphasised. The Indian Government gives the hospital an occasional grant for a particular purpose, but the only dependable source of income for helping poor and destitute patients comes from the Salvation Army’s Self-Denial Fund, administered from London.

“We need the help for special! projects which we get

from different parts of the world,” she said. “Our latest children’s ward, for instance, was built mainly from funds collected by Swedish boy scouts who sold bail-point pens. We need continual financial support because we must keep on improving our programmes.” PUBLIC HEALTH Brigadier Williamson praised India’s growing public health programmes, which include preventive medicine, family planning and welfare work for women and children. Much still had to be done in the villages and in these

more neglected areas the mission hospital did extensive work, she said. "Though thousands of doctors graduate every year in India, they don’t go willingly to the villages,” she said. "We have two village hospitals run in association with the Catherine Booth Hospital and a public health outreach, with a clinic for family planning and maternal and child welfare in another village.” Brigadier Williamson is now on furlough and is staying with her brother and sister-in-law, Mr and Mrs R. W. Williamson, Shirley. While in New Zealand she is giving talks to women’s groups and showing slides of South India. Nagercoil, where her hospital is situated, is about 12 miles from the southernmost tip of India, in Tamil Nadu (formerly Madras State). “South India is always a revelation to people who have not been there, with its green paddy fields, palm trees, golden beaches and luxuriant tropical growth. People are always amazed at the scenic beauty of the south; they imagine India is all arid desert, so that is why I show my slides of the south.”

Though she expects to return to India after furlough, Brigadier Williamson does not know yet where she will be posted.