NURSING IN INDIA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22198, 7 December 1946, Page 9

NURSING IN INDIA

SISTER’S EXPERIENCES MISSION IN PUNJAB Enjoying a well-earned furlough of 12 months. Sister E. H. Elliott, of the Presbyterian Mission Hospital, Jagadhri, India, who has been visiting relatives in Gisborne, left this morning for Wellington. Going to the field in 1922, Sister Elliott has a wealth of experience on which to draw and is able to give a great deal of enlightenment arid pungent thought on the various facets of Indian life. The Presbyterian Church of New Zealand established the mission in the Punjab, 1000 miles from Bombay. There are two stations, Kharar and Jagadhri, the latter station being Sister Elliott’s headquarters. The mission is now under the United Church of Northern India and is governed by a general assembly of Indians. The objective was to make the church stand on its own feet and it has proved its worthiness to do so. The hospital, at which Sister Elliott is nursing superintendent, has 75 beds, —SO for males and 25 for females. It is a training school for male nurses who have to pass the examinations set by the Punjab registered nurses’ council. N.Z. Surgeon is Superintendent There are two doctors, one Indian and one European. The hospital is famous for its surgery and is fortunate in having a New Zealander, Mr. D. A. Sutherland, who holds the degrees of F.R.C.S. (Ed.) and D.O.M.S. (Lond.) as medical superintendent. Dr. Sutherland served as a surgical specialist for five years with the armies in Iran and Iraq in the recent war. Sister Elliott is the only European nurse with a very good staff of Indian male nurses and female bids and also a first class Indian dispenser and laboratory technician. Her work embraces the theatre, X-ray, lectures and latterly she has set and corrected papers for oral and practical examinations held at Peshawar and Jodhpur. It seems that those attending to the mission and hospital consider that they have an ideal Christian financial arrangement for salaries. All serving, whether they are clerks, doctors, nurses or ministers of religion, receive _ the same standard of salary, one for single men and women and one for those married. Allowances are made for 'children, surgical instruments, and books, They are budgeted for and subject to a board allotting allowances, but the salaries, as such, stay at a stated amount. The recipients consider it the ideal arrangement as one does not lose sight of the spiritual in the material, one works for the love of the service and not for its monetary gain, a lesson that perhaps could well be learnt by many people to-day. Evangelical Prospects From an evangelical point of view Sister Elliott considers the prospects of. the church in India are very hopeful, but. from the medical point of view, more accent will have to be paid to the greatest need of India, preventive medicine. In this respect the Indian Government has planned a 10-year extensive educational programme. The vast country is one of extremes in wealth and poverty, heat and cold and education and illiteracy. In her particular district there is great poverty, but no famine, the inhabitants enjoying a certain prosperity due to the war when the Punjab sent away a greater percentage of soldiers than any other district. It is the home of the Sikhs, one of the three martial races of India.

All services, lectures and daily life are conducted in Hindustani.

ill the rainy season the schools are closed and less work done, so the missionaries spend their vacation of a few weeks in the hills, 100 miles from the Himalayas. Sister Elliott has had three furloughs during her 24 years’ service and it is eight years since she last visited this country. She is now having 12 months rest and hopes to return to India next August.