Nicholas Comninellis

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Worthy Ambition: Reopen a Closed Hospital in India

 

Looking for a worthy career goal? Need an inspiring role model? Consider Ann Miriam, INMED learner and physician with Emmanuel Hospital Association in NE India. Writes Dr. Miriam, “My husband (Vijay Anand Ismavel, a paediatric surgeon) and I (an anesthesiologist) have been working at the Makunda Christian Leprosy and General Hospital in northeast India since 1993. We restarted this closed down hospital at that time.” The hospital had become inoperative 10 years ten earlier when the American and Western European staff longer had their visas renewed to remain in India.

 

Now, Drs. Miriam and Ismavel are highly qualified, and could have easily remained working in their original city physician, but “They wanted to take their medical skills to the people who needed them the most — the farther away and the larger the number the better,” observes The Civil Society.  “When they turned up at the Makunda Hospital they found it was just the kind of challenge they were looking for. It was in a decrepit state, located on grounds over hundreds of acres and it had a vast catchment of under-served poor rural people.”

 

Today, Makunda Christian Leprosy and General Hospital each year serves 100,000 outpatients, 17,000 hospital admissions, oversees 6,000 deliveries, and performs some 3,000 surgical procedures. A research project by the Wharton School of Business was done on the impact of Makunda Christian Leprosy and General Hospital, who published these inspiring result: The Makunda Model: An observational study of high quality, accessible healthcare in low-resource settings.

 

Says Dr. Miriam,  “The success of the work at Makunda is all due to God’s grace and the hard work of numerous highly committed staff.” Enjoy this nicely produced full interview with Dr. Miriam and her husband Dr. Ismavel on YouTube.

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