The Jungle Clinic
My husband and I shifted to one of our idyllic centres inside the jungles of Orissa for three months in 1992. When we arrived there some sick were receiving medicines from our missionaries and I gladly volunteered to do the job as long as I was there.
An Epidemic of Death
When missionaries said that over 60 died of dysentery in and around the village the previous year, and the epidemic was just starting that year, my bowels knotted. Why should anyone die of dysentery in the 20th century? To build a rapport with the people we gave a free medical check-up for all the students of the local village school.
The Bus-stop Clinic
We wandered around the village to locate a spot for a clinic and found the waiting shed at the bus-stop ideal. We chased out the goats, washed the place and sprinkled dettol. I put on the coat and took out the stethoscope and we arranged the medicines to attract the attention of the people. Still they watched from outside apprehensively. “Come ,” we said. “We’ll give you, medicines.” One by one they came in hesitantly. We not only treated them, we chatted and joked with them, carried their babies and played with them. The very first afternoon we had 44 patients ! We were totally unprepared for this number.
Dharma
The next day happened to be a Tuesday which was hatte (weekly market) for the village. Tribes from the surrounding villages would come, sell their products, buy their requirements and return. A ripple spread through the jungle. “Christians have come to do dharma (charity). This doctor speaks our language. She even touches us. We can talk to her without fear.” I was moved.
Soon the number made a quantum leap and we were short of medicines. We sent and purchased medicines for Rs. 5000/- from the nearest town, 45 km away. We shifted the clinic to the 12'x4' verandah of our centre which had no flooring. An old mat was the examination couch.
Are you Harijan?
One day a woman asked me, “Are you Harijan ?” I replied, “We are all Harijans. We all belong to God,” and put my hand on her shoulder. She said, “The first time you smiled at me moro hrudoyo footigola (meaning, my heart blossomed).” I heard later that they were untouchables and sometimes even a doctor would hesitate to touch and examine them but just gave some medicines. It was hard for me to believe. If education did not peel off our caste skin, what good was it ?
The Sun Clock
I kept telling people to come at 3 p.m. I never realised it made no sense to them until one day a lady pointed her finger at the 3 p.m. sun spot and nodded her head. Suddenly it dawned on me that they had no clock. From then on I too learnt to tell them the time by the sun clock. No calendar either. No one knew their age. They knew the hatte day and counted 7 days for the next hatte. Duration of sickness was three or four hattes ! Long term illnesses were three lungis or so (Each lungi was worn for about 6 months till it was torn. So three lungis was 18 months). It appeared as if the jungle area was frozen out at the 1800’s.
The Wireless Circuit
I started to worry about funds. Would our Mission have the resources ? As I was pondering the issue an Indian brother from Gulf wrote, “I read your write-up about the medical needs in Orissa months ago. Please accept this Rs. 5000/-.” Instantly I knew God was telling me to go ahead. I was touched. Our God answers before we call on Him (Isa 65:24). I felt there was a wireless system between God’s children all over the world. Surprisingly parcels of sample medicines started arriving from friends. I remembered a brother who had earlier offered to help medical projects and wrote to him. He sent Rs. 40,000/- in two instalments. Our hearts overflowed with gratitude. As long as God’s people gave, we decided to treat the poor tribals free.
Anytime is Duty Time !
The number swelled up to 60-100 per day. I had to stretch out the hours from 10 to 6. Once a man arrived at 7 am.
“Why?”
“The only bus from our village comes at 7.”
“What ?”
“Dysentery”
“How long?”
“Four months.”
“How many times a day?”
“Countless number of times.”
With that he spread his towel on the floor and collapsed. I looked at the dried up body clinging to life and knelt down beside him on the sand to examine. At that moment I decided, I had no other duty there but to save lives. Pneumonia and heart patients came walking 12 km or more. Tribes people from the interior jungles started showing up with babies on their shoulders, crossing rivers and hills. We had to send them with medicines for 3-7 days because of the distance.
The Pathos
Sometimes patients would surround the footstool I was sitting on, with the sample medicines by my side. Suddenly with a groan someone would elbow out the rest and appear. We would think it was an emergency. But he would fall at our feet and weep, “Save us, please save us.” We would lift him by the shoulder and tell the whole crowd about the living God. Many broke down and wept as I started to examine them. They had been waiting for years for someone to come and give them 4 tablets of chloroquine and put an end to their cyclical chills and rigors.
Almost every other person had malaria. Two month old babies had spleens as big as saucers. Nine month olds were brought with rigors. Most of them were cruelly branded with red hot iron over the abdomen. People did not sleep in the nights. They lay scratching because of scabies. Tuberculosis and leprosy were rampant. Tape worm infestation was common. What would you diagnose a man for, who came with blood in the sputum and motion, a big spleen and itching? It was no medical mystery. It was simple. T.B., dysentery, malaria and scabies in one person! I had to start with the most serious and treat one by one.
Some would come asking for medicine for the old woman or child at home. We could not but diagnose and treat in absentia. You wouldn’t expect your granny with malaria or dysentery to walk 18 km through a leopard infested jungle, would you?
God save the people!
We had to take risks. We had to simply guess the weight of babies, powder a 10 mg or 25 mg tablet and give 1 mg. Night we would share these things and name the serious patients to fellow missionaries and pray for them. Morning we would rejoice to see them alive and well. When money came, we bought a weighing machine and dedicated it. The patients rejoiced because their verandah clinic had received a “machine.”
Teaching
Though the tribals were ignorant, they were intelligent. We started teaching them about germs, nutrition, dysentery, branding, etc., with flash cards and demonstrations. They would listen intently nodding, “Teek kotha, teek kotha” (That’s right, that’s right.)
Clean sin
When the milkman came for treatment we advised him to dilute the milk, if he desired, with borewell water instead of pond-water, because of the outbreak of dysentery. He was surprised that dysentery came from the pond and willingly agreed to use borewell water to dilute the milk!
The Tower of Babel
Each tribe had its own dialect. Pain was ‘Botho’ for one,
‘Duk’ for another and ‘Dorodh’ for yet another. ‘Hella nai’
was ‘I don’t have' in one dialect and ‘hellani’ was ‘I have’ in another. I was off the track till I discovered it. Once I told a patient to eat plenty of ‘saboan.’ Another missionary grinned and corrected it as ‘sagho’ (greens) not ‘saboan’ (soap).
Healing Wings
One day three men came walking 18 km requesting medicine for a 9 month old baby who had fallen in fire and got half her face burnt. We sent them with GV paint and Erythromycin. We kept praying. Two days later they brought the baby and 10 others from the village for treatment. The baby was happily playing on the mother’s lap. The burnt eyelids, nose and cheek were dry and clean, as if treated in a Burns Hospital.
A lady came for excessive bleeding. Since we didn’t have the medicine I gave a prescription. She was upset. She said another woman from her village came with the same complaint was given tablets and was healed. I looked at my fellow missionary. She winked at me and whispered ‘multivitamin.’ She then sent her off with multivitamin instructing her to take it in the name of Jesus. Patients swallowed their pills chanting, “Jeesu Prabhu, Jeesu Prabhu” (Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus !). Two missionaries went to a tribal hostel and treated all the boys for scabies. Then boys from the interior hostels started to come. People slept in the nights, free of scabies. They smiled at us. Suddenly one would come running, lift up our right hand gently and drop it (their handshake). To the glory of God we did not witness a single death due to dysentery that year. It was as if the healing wings of the Lord were fluttering over the jungle.
Nights we would sit and sort out the samples and bury the expired drugs which was quite a task.
Comic Relief
When the number of patients crossed 100, someone would shout ‘Century !’ The new missionary who hadn’t learnt the language would point to the weighing machine. Many patients would sit on it ! Some would not get on it until we first stood on it and assured them it was safe. One woman picked it up in her hands. Often when a patient was told to sit, he would squat on the floor near the stool meant for him. Once a lady with tapeworm infestation along with pin worms said, “There is a husband and wife in my stomach (tapeworms) who keep producing babies (pin worms)!” When asked, “How are you today ?”, patients would reply, “50 paise less” meaning 50 % better.
Thank You!
Thanks for all who gave or collected sample medicines and sent. Your prayers, money and medicines have saved many many lives.
So What?
Are we sending healthy people to Hell instead of sick ones ? Now missionaries are received with a smile in the villages. People gather to listen to them. Missionaries carry simple medicines to villages. Our believers who were outcasts so long, walk head high. Medical work is like a catalyst to the sweat and labour of missionaries.
The time came for me and my husband to leave the place. I couldn’t stop loving those people. My heart had already taken some roots there. At that time God sent Jaisankar, a fresh medical graduate. He had a plus point. He prayed right there and people were healed. If I turned green, I hid it by saying, ‘Praise the Lord!’ A patient showed his medicine and told me, “Bada doctor gave this” (Bada = big or chief ). That brought me to the ground. That was enough for me to understand that God’s work could go on without me. I bowed my head and worshipped. That was what I had been praying for.
If you are a doctor, employed or unemployed, please consider atleast a couple of months in any one mission station to save the people and strengthen the work of the missionaries.
Once while auscultating a man something warm fell on my arm. I looked up. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and dripping. It dried on my arm. But his tears will remain wet in my heart till we do all that is possible within our means to save the bodies and souls of these tribes, so naked to misfortune.
Dr. Lilian Stanley
13 Church Colony
Vellore 632006, India
+91 9843511943
lilianstanley@gmail.com
Blessing Youth Mission
13 Church Colony
Vellore 632006, India
+91-416-2242943, +91-416-2248943
hq@bymonline.org
www.bymonline.org
Click here for more options
To buy books written by Dr. Lilian Stanley, kindly reach to us in the follwing address
Blessing Literature Centre
21/11 West Coovam River Road,
Chintadripet,
Chennai 600 002, India.
+91-44-28450411, 8806270699
blc@bymonline.org
The Jungle Clinic
My husband and I shifted to one of our idyllic centres inside the jungles of Orissa for three months in 1992. When we arrived there some sick were receiving medicines from our missionaries and I gladly volunteered to do the job as long as I was there.
An Epidemic of Death
When missionaries said that over 60 died of dysentery in and around the village the previous year, and the epidemic was just starting that year, my bowels knotted. Why should anyone die of dysentery in the 20th century? To build a rapport with the people we gave a free medical check-up for all the students of the local village school.
The Bus-stop Clinic
We wandered around the village to locate a spot for a clinic and found the waiting shed at the bus-stop ideal. We chased out the goats, washed the place and sprinkled dettol. I put on the coat and took out the stethoscope and we arranged the medicines to attract the attention of the people. Still they watched from outside apprehensively. “Come ,” we said. “We’ll give you, medicines.” One by one they came in hesitantly. We not only treated them, we chatted and joked with them, carried their babies and played with them. The very first afternoon we had 44 patients ! We were totally unprepared for this number.
Dharma
The next day happened to be a Tuesday which was hatte (weekly market) for the village. Tribes from the surrounding villages would come, sell their products, buy their requirements and return. A ripple spread through the jungle. “Christians have come to do dharma (charity). This doctor speaks our language. She even touches us. We can talk to her without fear.” I was moved.
Soon the number made a quantum leap and we were short of medicines. We sent and purchased medicines for Rs. 5000/- from the nearest town, 45 km away. We shifted the clinic to the 12'x4' verandah of our centre which had no flooring. An old mat was the examination couch.
Are you Harijan?
One day a woman asked me, “Are you Harijan ?” I replied, “We are all Harijans. We all belong to God,” and put my hand on her shoulder. She said, “The first time you smiled at me moro hrudoyo footigola (meaning, my heart blossomed).” I heard later that they were untouchables and sometimes even a doctor would hesitate to touch and examine them but just gave some medicines. It was hard for me to believe. If education did not peel off our caste skin, what good was it ?
The Sun Clock
I kept telling people to come at 3 p.m. I never realised it made no sense to them until one day a lady pointed her finger at the 3 p.m. sun spot and nodded her head. Suddenly it dawned on me that they had no clock. From then on I too learnt to tell them the time by the sun clock. No calendar either. No one knew their age. They knew the hatte day and counted 7 days for the next hatte. Duration of sickness was three or four hattes ! Long term illnesses were three lungis or so (Each lungi was worn for about 6 months till it was torn. So three lungis was 18 months). It appeared as if the jungle area was frozen out at the 1800’s.
The Wireless Circuit
I started to worry about funds. Would our Mission have the resources ? As I was pondering the issue an Indian brother from Gulf wrote, “I read your write-up about the medical needs in Orissa months ago. Please accept this Rs. 5000/-.” Instantly I knew God was telling me to go ahead. I was touched. Our God answers before we call on Him (Isa 65:24). I felt there was a wireless system between God’s children all over the world. Surprisingly parcels of sample medicines started arriving from friends. I remembered a brother who had earlier offered to help medical projects and wrote to him. He sent Rs. 40,000/- in two instalments. Our hearts overflowed with gratitude. As long as God’s people gave, we decided to treat the poor tribals free.
Anytime is Duty Time !
The number swelled up to 60-100 per day. I had to stretch out the hours from 10 to 6. Once a man arrived at 7 am.
“Why?”
“The only bus from our village comes at 7.”
“What ?”
“Dysentery”
“How long?”
“Four months.”
“How many times a day?”
“Countless number of times.”
With that he spread his towel on the floor and collapsed. I looked at the dried up body clinging to life and knelt down beside him on the sand to examine. At that moment I decided, I had no other duty there but to save lives. Pneumonia and heart patients came walking 12 km or more. Tribes people from the interior jungles started showing up with babies on their shoulders, crossing rivers and hills. We had to send them with medicines for 3-7 days because of the distance.
The Pathos
Sometimes patients would surround the footstool I was sitting on, with the sample medicines by my side. Suddenly with a groan someone would elbow out the rest and appear. We would think it was an emergency. But he would fall at our feet and weep, “Save us, please save us.” We would lift him by the shoulder and tell the whole crowd about the living God. Many broke down and wept as I started to examine them. They had been waiting for years for someone to come and give them 4 tablets of chloroquine and put an end to their cyclical chills and rigors.
Almost every other person had malaria. Two month old babies had spleens as big as saucers. Nine month olds were brought with rigors. Most of them were cruelly branded with red hot iron over the abdomen. People did not sleep in the nights. They lay scratching because of scabies. Tuberculosis and leprosy were rampant. Tape worm infestation was common. What would you diagnose a man for, who came with blood in the sputum and motion, a big spleen and itching? It was no medical mystery. It was simple. T.B., dysentery, malaria and scabies in one person! I had to start with the most serious and treat one by one.
Some would come asking for medicine for the old woman or child at home. We could not but diagnose and treat in absentia. You wouldn’t expect your granny with malaria or dysentery to walk 18 km through a leopard infested jungle, would you?
God save the people!
We had to take risks. We had to simply guess the weight of babies, powder a 10 mg or 25 mg tablet and give 1 mg. Night we would share these things and name the serious patients to fellow missionaries and pray for them. Morning we would rejoice to see them alive and well. When money came, we bought a weighing machine and dedicated it. The patients rejoiced because their verandah clinic had received a “machine.”
Teaching
Though the tribals were ignorant, they were intelligent. We started teaching them about germs, nutrition, dysentery, branding, etc., with flash cards and demonstrations. They would listen intently nodding, “Teek kotha, teek kotha” (That’s right, that’s right.)
Clean sin
When the milkman came for treatment we advised him to dilute the milk, if he desired, with borewell water instead of pond-water, because of the outbreak of dysentery. He was surprised that dysentery came from the pond and willingly agreed to use borewell water to dilute the milk!
The Tower of Babel
Each tribe had its own dialect. Pain was ‘Botho’ for one,
‘Duk’ for another and ‘Dorodh’ for yet another. ‘Hella nai’
was ‘I don’t have' in one dialect and ‘hellani’ was ‘I have’ in another. I was off the track till I discovered it. Once I told a patient to eat plenty of ‘saboan.’ Another missionary grinned and corrected it as ‘sagho’ (greens) not ‘saboan’ (soap).
Healing Wings
One day three men came walking 18 km requesting medicine for a 9 month old baby who had fallen in fire and got half her face burnt. We sent them with GV paint and Erythromycin. We kept praying. Two days later they brought the baby and 10 others from the village for treatment. The baby was happily playing on the mother’s lap. The burnt eyelids, nose and cheek were dry and clean, as if treated in a Burns Hospital.
A lady came for excessive bleeding. Since we didn’t have the medicine I gave a prescription. She was upset. She said another woman from her village came with the same complaint was given tablets and was healed. I looked at my fellow missionary. She winked at me and whispered ‘multivitamin.’ She then sent her off with multivitamin instructing her to take it in the name of Jesus. Patients swallowed their pills chanting, “Jeesu Prabhu, Jeesu Prabhu” (Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus !). Two missionaries went to a tribal hostel and treated all the boys for scabies. Then boys from the interior hostels started to come. People slept in the nights, free of scabies. They smiled at us. Suddenly one would come running, lift up our right hand gently and drop it (their handshake). To the glory of God we did not witness a single death due to dysentery that year. It was as if the healing wings of the Lord were fluttering over the jungle.
Nights we would sit and sort out the samples and bury the expired drugs which was quite a task.
Comic Relief
When the number of patients crossed 100, someone would shout ‘Century !’ The new missionary who hadn’t learnt the language would point to the weighing machine. Many patients would sit on it ! Some would not get on it until we first stood on it and assured them it was safe. One woman picked it up in her hands. Often when a patient was told to sit, he would squat on the floor near the stool meant for him. Once a lady with tapeworm infestation along with pin worms said, “There is a husband and wife in my stomach (tapeworms) who keep producing babies (pin worms)!” When asked, “How are you today ?”, patients would reply, “50 paise less” meaning 50 % better.
Thank You!
Thanks for all who gave or collected sample medicines and sent. Your prayers, money and medicines have saved many many lives.
So What?
Are we sending healthy people to Hell instead of sick ones ? Now missionaries are received with a smile in the villages. People gather to listen to them. Missionaries carry simple medicines to villages. Our believers who were outcasts so long, walk head high. Medical work is like a catalyst to the sweat and labour of missionaries.
The time came for me and my husband to leave the place. I couldn’t stop loving those people. My heart had already taken some roots there. At that time God sent Jaisankar, a fresh medical graduate. He had a plus point. He prayed right there and people were healed. If I turned green, I hid it by saying, ‘Praise the Lord!’ A patient showed his medicine and told me, “Bada doctor gave this” (Bada = big or chief ). That brought me to the ground. That was enough for me to understand that God’s work could go on without me. I bowed my head and worshipped. That was what I had been praying for.
If you are a doctor, employed or unemployed, please consider atleast a couple of months in any one mission station to save the people and strengthen the work of the missionaries.
Once while auscultating a man something warm fell on my arm. I looked up. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and dripping. It dried on my arm. But his tears will remain wet in my heart till we do all that is possible within our means to save the bodies and souls of these tribes, so naked to misfortune.
Dr. Lilian Stanley
13 Church Colony
Vellore 632006, India
+91 9843511943
lilianstanley@gmail.com
Blessing Youth Mission
13 Church Colony
Vellore 632006, India
+91-416-2242943, +91-416-2248943
hq@bymonline.org
www.bymonline.org
Click here for more options
To buy books written by Dr. Lilian Stanley, kindly reach to us in the follwing address
Blessing Literature Centre
21/11 West Coovam River Road,
Chintadripet,
Chennai 600 002, India.
+91-44-28450411, Mob:8806270699
blc@bymonline.org
