A Crisis of Care

In 1950, one in every three hospital beds in India was in a mission hospital. With the changing political climate many workers from overseas had to leave, and about 700 mission hospitals were closed—leaving a crisis of health care for Indians.

Local and international health care leaders, in order to ensure long-term sustainability of former mission hospitals, formed the Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) in 1970 and registered it under the Societies Registration Act. Over the years, EHA has grown to be a Christian medical movement and a fellowship of Christian health professionals who serve people and communities regardless of race, caste, creed, or religion “in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ so as to manifest Him through word and deed.”

Dr. Varghese Philip is the Director of EHA. As a young doctor, he started a hospital in Orissa in eastern India. Following business studies in London, he became EHA’s Medical Secretary, and he was commissioned as the Executive Director in 2004. In 2005 EHA’s Health Care and Development interventions, including disaster relief and HIV response, served a population of 30 million impoverished people.

Training Initiatives

	Dr. Jeff Lehman

Three years ago, Herbertpur Hospital, a member of EHA, invited Dr. Jeff Leman to start a residency program in family practice. He spent several months doing paperwork, secured government approval in September 2004, and the first residents began their program in December 2004. The program accepts three residents each year for a three-year residency—a total of nine at a time. Into these nine residents Jeff pours his time, energy and passion for medicine. His wife teaches a class for the hospital nurses each week, and once a month she hosts a tea for them. He says, “She is a wonderful role model for them as they seek to find what it means to be a Christian nurse and woman.

Two other hospitals in EHA now have approval for family practice residency programs. EHA’s Duncan Hospital needs more family practitioners to run their program. (Friends of SIM will be familiar with Duncan Hospital in Raxaul, on the border with Nepal, because of Dr. Aletta Bell’s many years of service there.) The family practice residency at the EHA hospital in Tezpur, Assam, is being run by a consultant for lack of a full-time family practice specialist. There’s a wide-open door for doctors to fill these positions. A 500-bed teaching hospital for Dimapur, Nagaland, should begin this year. Experienced civil engineers are urgently needed to supervise construction.

Pray for our EHA partners—sacrificial, committed, often overlooked and unthanked. Their hospital salaries are significantly less than they could earn in the private sector. Many face opposition from their extended families—even when they are Christians—for depriving them of the wealth they expected to share.

Go

Doctors and other medical practitioners from all countries are needed in EHA’s International Volunteers program.