Community Health

The parking lot outside of Christian Medical College Hospital becomes an overflowing waiting area as people wait to be seen by a doctor.

While visiting the Christian Medical College (CMC) Hospital in Vellore, India, I experienced many amazing things. The enormous numbers of people arriving daily for treatment and care, or to visit a relative by every conveyance possible was truly amazing. Standing in front of the emergency room entrance I was amazed at how orderly and peaceful it was as people waiting to be seen somehow knew where to go and what to do.

Over 5,000 people a day are seen at this facility. CMC Hospital serves as the base for an extensive outreach program that takes medicine to the people in over 300 local villages through a comprehensive program of community health education, prevention and treatment.

The philosophy behind the work of UMCOR Health is this same strategy. Education and prevention is much more efficient and effective than just letting nature take its course. UMCOR Health has embarked on a significant training program for community health workers and mid-wives to serve villages in Africa. Community health workers are recruited from their home villages, trained and re-trained to provide accurate public health knowledge, improve the immediate treatment of injuries, assist in the birthing process and recognize when a condition requires referral to a clinic or hospital. Community-based primary health care works.

Dr. Suranjan Bhattacharji,, the Director of the CMC Hospital, told this story of one way in which their community based primary health care system has enabled better treatment of patients in remote villages. The community health worker collects a specimen requiring laboratory analysis from a patient. The health worker gives it to a student trained to handle this responsibility who takes it with her to her school several kilometers away. She leaves it with the tea vendor outside the school. When the teachers break for tea, one who has come from the city picks up the specimen and carries it with him, dropping it off at the lab, when he returns to the city. The analysis is performed, the diagnosis made, a call is made to the community health worker, and medicine is sent by the reverse procedure, if necessary. In 24 hours, a patient in a remote village is ministered unto.

As UMCOR works in places near and far, new ways to serve those in need are being continuously discovered. God is sending United Methodists on an amazing journey as we learn new ways to help each other.

By the Rev. Sam Dixon, Deputy General Secretary, UMCOR

“The Woman Who Couldn’t Say No”

A parking lot becomes a waiting area for patients waiting to be seen by doctors at the Christian Medical College Emergency Room in Vellore, India

Dr. Suranjan Bhattacharji, director of the Christian Medical College Hospital in Vellore, India met the UMCOR team shortly after our arrival at the Guest House on the campus of the medical school. Dr. Cherian Thomas, the head of UMCOR Health and leader of the team that also included Dr. Peter Fasan, dean of the School of Allied Health Sciences at Africa University and Niels French from the Methodist Hospital System in Memphis had come to Vellore to discuss ways in which this mission hospital could assist the fruition of the dream to start a United Methodist Medical School at Africa University. A secondary outcome was to make a connection with various departments within the hospital to see if it was possible for the hospital to provide some additional training for doctor/nurse teams from Africa. The trip was very successful with much information shared and commitments made. Another step along the journey of significantly improving the United Methodist Church health care systems in Africa was taken.

As Dr. Suranjan welcomed us that night he reminded us of the beginnings of the Christian Medical College and the Hospital as he told the story of Dr. Ida Scudder, “the woman who couldn’t say no.” Ida Scudder was the daughter of an American missionary couple in Tindivanam, India. In school and in America, enjoying a full and active life filled with activities with her friends, Ida had no desire to spend her life as a missionary. Visiting her parents in India, Ida was busily writing letters to her friends back home when she was interrupted by a knock on the door.

A man had come to seek her help with his young wife who was experiencing a very difficult labor. Ida explained that she was not a doctor, her father was, and she didn’t know what to do. She urged the man to let her father come and attend to his wife. He refused her offer with great sadness as his culture would not permit his wife to be seen by a male doctor. In a little while, another man came pleading for help. Later, another man also came. Three visitors, three pleas for help, three refusals to allow her father to see their wives—three preventable deaths.

Ida began to hear the voice of God calling here to become a missionary doctor in India. She couldn’t say no. She had to serve the women of India. Graduating from medical school she moved to Vellore where she began her work in a one room clinic where she lived. With the determination that only comes from God, she met challenge after challenge and with God’s help overcame them all. Today, the CMC Hospital serves an average of 1,900 in patients and more than 5,000 outpatients a day. It is an incredible site as people come from all over the country to be treated at this great place. It shows what can be done when we don’t say “no” to God.

Dr. Scudder expressed the vision of the hospital like this: “Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” For the CMC Hospital it is a true today as it was at its beginning. By sharing this vision, it becomes possible for we United Methodists to achieve our goal to significantly improve the health of the poor and the most vulnerable through the Global Health Initiative.

By the Rev. Sam Dixon, Deputy General Secretary for UMCOR