Medical Prospects in India

Presentation at morning devotional hour, Southern Asia Division committee meeting, Poona, India, December, 1945.

By THEODORE R. FLAIZ, M.D., Medical Secretary, Southern Asia Division

Christ was the first Christian missionary, and we may presume that as such the methods, plans, and technique which He employed would be the pattern which we as missionaries to day might consistently follow. As we contemplate this, do we find any statement or plan of work which Christ followed? If we were looking for one place in the Scriptures which above every other reveals Christ's ideal for us in His work, it would surely be found in the statement beginning in Matthew 4:23:

"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of dis ease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain: and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him: and He opened His mouth, and taught them."

You will recall that this was the introduction to the greatest Christian sermon of which we have any record. By example He outlined to us the method which He doubtless regarded as the truly balanced gospel message—His ideal for His work at that time. As the work which Christ was per forming then was the beginning of the work which we believe is soon to close in triumph, we would conclude that this is the same plan which in general Christ would have us follow today.

We have all read the statement from the Spirit of prophecy which says that Christ spent more of His time in healing than He did in other lines of work. The record would indicate that the work of healing and helping the poor and needy occupied a large portion of His time.

We have all recognized that our medical work is a very valuable means to the accomplishment of our purposes in India. Various are the interpretations placed on the significance of medical work. Not only is this true of our own people, but other mission bodies as well look upon the value of medical work from different angles. There is the viewpoint of some that the medical work is merely a means toward our ultimate purpose of getting the gospel before the people. Then there are those who feel that medical work is of itself an essential part of the gospel program, that the actual treatment and healing of disease-ridden bodies is an essential part of the Christian pro gram.

A third group conceives that both these attitudes are correct, and that while it is one manifestation of the spirit of Christ, it is also, particularly in less advanced countries, an excellent entering wedge for the full gospel message. However we view this particular phase of the question, we all recognize that our medical work is a valuable ad junct, even as the right arm, to our gospel' mes sage. There is, of course, much yet to be done in this great division of Southern Asia in bringing the medical work to the place where it can rightly claim to be fulfilling the place of the right arm.

At the present time, so far as organized medical work is concerned, we have two hospitals and a number of dispensaries functioning. Our hospitals are now on a reasonably secure basis. At Nuzvid we are getting under way for the development of full nurses' training. We are expanding our fa cilities there in order to bring the training onto a fully recognized basis. This will enable our nurses to receive the recognition which they will need in order to practice under the protection of a proper license. There are plans under way for the devel opment of other medical institutions. We have those which are already definitely provided for, as at Gopalganj and Chuharkana. Then we have other excellent openings where we are being urged to develop medical work. Some of these will be given study as early as possible.

The major problem we are facing in this field as relates to our medical work is that of training in digenous workers. This problem divides itself into two categories—the training which we are able to give in our own institutions, such as for nurses and technicians ; and that for which we are de pendent on others, the training of fully qualified medical doctors.

I should perhaps say a word in regard to this medical training and some of our related problems in that connection. The Madras University School of Medicine is recognized as the outstanding medical school of India. It registers two hundred new students in its freshman class each year. Of these two hundred seats, all but forty are reserved for Hindus and Mohammedans; twenty are held for Parsis, Jams, Sikhs, and other minority groups ; and only twenty seats are allowed for Christians.

Some five million Christians have twenty seats allowed them in this university!

In order to gain a seat in this institution, the student must have finished his intermediate science with a first-grade pass, which means almost the equivalent of an A grade throughout. I am sure you will see how definitely limited we are in get ting students into that school. When you remember that we have in South India a membership of perhaps four or five thousand people, and we have to compete with five million Christians belonging to other denominations (we have a ratio of one to one thousand to the rest of the Christian community), how little chance we have of getting even one student into that institution is apparent. These ratios make plain the need for some plan by which we might be able to reserve at least a limited number of seats in a medical training institution.

An alternative to this plan is the establishment of a medical college of our own. As you know, the General Conference has given thought over a number of years to the possibility of the establishment of a medical school in the Orient. However, at the present time national barriers in every country—the Orient as well as the Occident—have made ii almost imperative that medical training be undertaken in the country where it is to be used. For this reason, if for no other, the establishment of a medical school in the Orient seems practically ruled out. The physical plant and facilities alone for such a school in India would cost approximately fifty or sixty lakhs ($2,000,000). I am sure you will recognize where that places us in the matter of our own medical school.

But we do have cause for some encouragement. Many of you are aware that we are working with the Vellore Christian Medical College in South India to develop a plan by which we will be privi leged to send possibly up to four students annually to that institution. As these arrangements now stand, our students will meet with no difficulties because of their religious convictions. The details of this plan have been worked out to mutual satis faction. The matter is now being considered by our people and the managing board of the Vellore medical school in America. We are hoping to be able to take full advantage of this training arrange ment, and within a reasonable time have a con sistent flow of fully qualified medical workers com ing from this institution. We are looking forward to the Vellore medical school connection as a means of great blessing to our work.

(To be continued in September)


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By THEODORE R. FLAIZ, M.D., Medical Secretary, Southern Asia Division

August 1946

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