Doctors out there: Why small hospitals matter
This piece was published in civilsocietyonline.com April 23rd, 2020 and explains more about The Duncan Hospital and other independent hospitals in India, how the staff in such hospitals work to better the health of their local populations.
“In 1992 a young couple, both doctors, travelled from Madurai in Tamil Nadu to a remote corner of Assam to check out the Makunda Christian Leprosy and General Hospital. They had been told that the hospital needed to be revived, having become defunct 10 years earlier after the missionaries running it were asked to leave India.
Vijay Anand Ismavel had a master’s in surgery and Ann, his wife, was an MBBS physician. With qualifications like theirs, getting jobs or setting up a practice was easy. There was really no great need to leave Madurai. Both of them, however, had other expectations from their profession. 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.”