By Matters India Reporter

Hyderabad, Feb 8, 2020: The Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI) will collaborate with the Society of Jesus Mary Joseph to commemorate the 100th anniversary of its founder’s arrival in India.

Sister Mary Glowrey, a member of the JMJ congregation and a Servant of God, arrived in India on February 11, 1920. She opened a new chapter in India’s healthcare mission.

As a visionary and a saint, Sister Glowrey developed processes and structures to promote efficient and sustainable healthcare delivery to the poor.

In 1942 she established the CHAI, a premier health association in the country, along with a team of 15 nuns and Jesuit priest and laid the foundation of the world’s largest health network.

CHAI and JMJ congregation have prepared a poster and novena prayer for the occasion. February 11 is also the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and the World Day of the Sick.

Sister Glowrey, who died in 1957 aged 69, was an Australian doctor who spent 37 years in India. She is believed to be the first Catholic religious sister to practice as a doctor. The Catholic Church is investigating her Cause for Canonization and declared her a Servant of God in 2013.

Glowrey was born in the Victorian town of Birregurra.

In 1900, Glowrey came third of 800 entrants in a Victorian State Education secondary scholarship exam. From 1901 -1904 she attended South Melbourne College, in Bank Street, South Melbourne. She boarded at the Good Shepherd Convent in Albert Park. She matriculated at the end of her first year at SMC and won a scholarship to study at the University of Melbourne. Since she was too young to go to university, she continued studying subjects at SMC for the next three years.

In 1905, Glowrey completed her first year of a Bachelor of Arts course at the University of Melbourne. She was a student at Ormond College. In 1906, she transferred her course and scholarship to study medicine at the university. She attended the first year of the St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne Clinical School in 1910. She graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1910.

Glowrey later returned to the University of Melbourne to undertake higher medical studies, graduating with a Doctor of Medicine in 1919 in obstetrics, gynecology and ophthalmology.

She was reported to be the first woman appointed as a residential doctor in New Zealand in 1911, and completed her residential year at Christchurch Hospital.

She returned to Melbourne in 1912. Her medical appointments in Melbourne included positions at Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and St Vincent’s Hospital.[10]

In October 1916, the Catholic Women’s Social Guild was formed at Cathedral Hall, Brunswick Street Fitzroy. Glowrey was the Guild’s inaugural president. In that role, she gave lectures and wrote articles about some of the economic and social problems faced by women.

Glowrey boarded at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital during 1915-1919 and took on many medical duties of the male doctors who signed up to serve in World War One.

In October 1915, Glowrey read a pamphlet about the life of Agnes McLaren, a pioneering Scottish missionary doctor, and the need for women doctors in India, and felt called to serve as a medical missionary doctor there.

Glowrey discreetly discerned this religious vocation over subsequent years with her spiritual director, Father William Lockington.

After she came to India, Glowrey never returned to Australia. She arrived in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, and joined the JMJ congregation and became known as Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart. In 1922, after the completion of her religious training, Glowrey began practicing as a doctor-Sister.

The basic dispensary where Glowrey began her medical mission work in Guntur grew into St Joseph’s Hospital. Glowrey provided direct medical care for hundreds of thousands of patients, most of them poor women. She trained local women to be compounders (dispensers), midwives and nurses. In 1943 Glowrey founded the Catholic Health Association of India (then called the Catholic Hospital Association). Today, its more than 3.500 member institutions cater to more than 21 million annually.

Glowrey died in Bangalore from cancer on 5 May 1957.