By Francis Sunil Rosario

Medinipur, October 17, 2019: When a healthcare organization from Czech Republic approached the Archdiocese of Calcutta to build a hospital for the poor in India the response was reluctance. The eastern Indian archdiocese said it was not ready to undertake such a project.

However, Father Reginald Fernandes, whom the representative of Likvidace Lepry of Praha first met, said he would give it a try. He was then the director of Seva Kendra, the archdiocese’s social service wing. That was in 2004.

Fifteen years later, St. Joseph’s Hospital at Phulpahari (hill of flowers), outside Medinipur town and 130 km west of Kolkata, is the main Christian presence in a city of nearly 175,000 people, divided equally between Hindus and Muslims.

The place etched its name in the Indian freedom movement by producing an endless list of martyrs. The town became a center of revolutionary activities starting from the Santal Revolt (1766-1767) and the Chuar Revolt (1799).

Now, another revolution is taking place through the Catholic hospital that caters to the health needs of thousands of villagers in and around Medinipur.

“Although a minority, the Church reaches out to all, especially to the poor, oppressed and the marginalized,” Father Fernandes told Matters India.

The Calcutta archdiocesan priest said the Czech team met him when he was looking for new opportunities to serve Jesus. “The hospital project just happened. In fact, it was God’s project to alleviate pain and suffering of the poor and the marginalized,” he added.

Father Fernandes says the project was boosted when Seva Kendra’s governing body accepted the proposal. He then found a women religious congregation to staff the hospital.

For Father Fernandes, hospital ministry is another new way of being Church, especially among people of other religions living in places where healthcare facilities are rare.

The hospital project took further shape when two Visitation nuns from Czech Republic visited Kolkata offering to start a hospital for leprosy and tuberculosis patients with facilities for general ward. The offer was certainly attractive. It got the archdiocesan approval.

The entire hospital project was funded by Likvidace Lepry or liquidation of leprosy (LL), established by the Archbishop of Prague as a church legal entity with independent legal personality in 2010. However, it was the continuation of an activity, founded in 1992 non-profit organization to help treat infectious diseases such as leprosy and tuberculosis in developing countries.

So, LL president Doctor Vojtech Eliasm was present along with former president Jiri Holy for the blessing of the hospital by Emeritus Archbishop Lucas Sirkar of Calcutta on November 13, 2011. Archbishop D’Souza attended the inaugural ceremony.

Father Fernandes thanks Doctor Francis Tapas Biswas, an alumnus of St Anthony’s High School in Kolkata, for helping to build the hospital’s infrastructure. After his medical studies in Ireland and Royal College of Surgeons, Biswas was working in Irish hospitals. He introduced his many colleagues to the Medinipur project who now offer free service.

This hospital now has general laparoscopic surgeons, gynecologist, orthopedic surgeons, cardiologist and diabetologist, cancer specialists, neurosurgeon, ENT surgeon, skin specialists, child specialist, pain clinic, eye specialist, psychiatrists, dental surgeon, physiotherapist, anesthesiology.

The hospital has 45 doctors to attend to various needs of the patients throughout the year. “They are all dedicated doctors; efficient and committed to their healing mission,” Father Fernandes says.

The hospital can accommodate 100 indoor patients and 25 are exclusively for tuberculosis patients.

The hospital conducts an average 200 surgeries a month. It also trains general nurses and most students are nuns from various religious congregations.

Father Fernandes says they plan to increase the bed capacity to 300 as they see great future for the hospital’s ministry in Medinipur region. “This is a unique landmark and milestone to building up ‘healing touch to the suffering humanity with compassion’ based on the Gospel principles,” the priest added.

The director also plans to to open a diagnostic center with equipment and start bachelors in nursing course. A center for palliative care and clinical counseling are also in the pipeline.

The Catholic hospital has built in its front portion a rose garden of 5,000 square feet to give meaning to “Phulpahari” that has neither flower no hill. As the hospital sits amid farm lands, patients and others can get immersed in the place’s natural beauty that brings peace and tranquility that quicken healing of mind and soul.

As the hospital expands further, Father Fernandes, the man who converted Calcutta archdiocese’s “reluctant mission” into a reality, says: “Our mission is to embrace all who come to this hospital, take care of them and look after them so that they can go back home cured. This Christian virtue is the most important and necessary value of our daily life at St. Joseph’s Hospital.”