Congo Medical Center Is Cooperative Work

by Herbert Atkinson, M.D.

THE EVANGELICAL Medical Center is an intermission medical project in northeast Congo with spiritual objectives implemented by medical means.

THE EVANGELICAL Medical Center is an intermission medical project in northeast Congo with spiritual objectives implemented by medical means.

A cooperative intermission venture is not a new concept in missionary work. Several such have existed around the world for years. The underlying motivation for our center is simply that in the face of an overwhelming need, this method seemed to us to be the most realistic, practical and sensible.

The first real correlation of ideas on this project occurred in 1964 at an intermission medical conference held at Oicha Hospital of the Africa Inland Mission in the Ituri Forest. Dr. Carl K. Becker was elected chairman of these meetings. Representatives of the various missions’ medical profession, both European and Congolese, were in attendance.

All agreed that a cooperative center would be of mutual benefit, especially in terms of a centralized medical school for Congolese male nurses. Little did we realize as we met that the winds of violent rebellion were already blowing in northeast Congo. Dr. Ian Sharpe, who was with us, was soon to lay down his life in martyrdom. Others in the meeting were to leave Congo permanently, while the rest of the Europeans and some Africans would be forced into temporary evacuation in other countries.

Despite the tragic succeeding events, the need of and vision for an intermission center continued. The spiritual objectives of winning souls to Jesus Christ, being a supportive arm for the African Church, and training Congolese workers for a medico-evangelistic ministry are still the keystone of the program.

As the northeast Congo gradually struggled to its political feet again in 1965 and 1966, the Centre Medical Evangelique was commencing at Nyankunde some 30 miles from the city of Bunia. The Emmanuel Mission kindly offered to the Center its grounds and hospital which for several years had not had missionary doctors.

An immediate problem was staff housing and an adequate water supply for the hospital and medical community. The first class of medical students accepted by Dr. Helen Roseveare and her staff was obliged to build its own housing before classes started. Old former dispensary buildings were used for classrooms and school began. There was from the first a good spirit among the students and staff.

As of 1969 the Centre Medical Evangelique is composed of five evangelical missions—Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society, Emmanuel Mission of the Brethren Assemblies, Un-evangelized Fields Mission, Worldwide Evangelization Crusade and Africa Inland Mission. These missions have representatives on the Center Intermission Council which meets annually to review standards, practices, and finances of the project. Each represented mission is expected to contribute medical staff personnel for the Center as well as financial aid as the Lord provides.

We are grateful to the Lord for His provision of a Cessna 185 Skywagon airplane which has a 300 horsepower engine. Emie Doerkson of Missionary Aviation Fellowship lives at Nyankunde, pilots and maintains the plane, and provides invaluable service to our six hospitals and 27 dispensaries.

The Lord has recently provided for us a network of SSB radio transceivers for our hospitals. This means we can have regular daily contact with our hospitals as well as an emergency call service to the Center available at any time throughout the day. All our hospitals have airstrips and under normal conditions we can reach even our most remote hospital in less than two hours flying time. Formerly it was a two-day trip overland.Our hospitals are manned by an African staff trained over the years by Dr. Becker and other medical missionaries. In addition there are one or two missionary nurses at each hospital. Drugs and supplies are ordered from Nyankunde and shipped by plane, car and medical safari by missionaries passing through. Obtaining government permission to import drugs is one of our foremost problems these days because of poor communications and unreliable transportation from down country. All our medicines must be purchased through Uganda. This requires bank and government licenses as well as an external account in Uganda. Our Congolese currency is not accepted there.

Over one thousand major operations are performed annually by the Center staff and some 9,000 dispensary patients are seen daily through the associated hospitals and dispensaries.

The Nyankunde base hospital is equipped for such procedures as electrocardiography, electroshock therapy, radiography, eye refraction, dental extractions, tissue pathology studies, endotracheal anesthesia, ultrasound therapy, physiotherapy, etc. Prenatal and pediatric clinics are held weekly. Pulmonary and psychosis units are established and maintained also at Nyankunde hospital.

The African staff screens out, diagnoses and prescribes for the common maladies and tropical diseases. They have become quite adept at referring surgical, serious, or problem cases to the missionary doctors.

The medical work is divided into basically five services: 1. Medical-Dispensary; 2. Surgical-Bureau; 3. Ob-Gynecological; 4. Safari (regular medical-surgical trips to associated hospitals); 5. Medical School.

Three of our doctors rotate services 1, 2 and 4. Dr. Ruth Dix, a specialist in Ob-Gyn is in charge of that department. Dr. Helen Roseveare directs the medical school. In addition Dr. Harry Wilcke is a specialist in anesthesiology. Dr. Richard Ulrich is a specialist in general surgery and Dr. Carl Becker serves as Medical Director of the entire Center’s program. The Lord seems to have interwoven the doctors’ talents and training, giving each a niche wherein he can contribute to the whole.

To each of the associated six hospitals a visit of up to one week is made in rotation. That is, one of the three alternating physicians will spend a week at the hospital seeing referred cases, doing as much of the elective surgery as possible, and any ancillary medical work that has come up since the last visit. These visits are concentrated and very tiring for all the staff involved. The missionary nurses carry the responsibility of caring for the post-operative cases, but can consult the doctors at the Center on any complications. Emergency service is available to ail our hospitals and some dispensaries through use of the aforementioned radio transceivers and the Cessna aircraft.

The spiritual ministry of the Center is also multifaceted. Each hospital employs a hospital evangelist who holds evangelistic meetings daily for the dispensary patients. In the past year over 600 decisions for Christ were recorded at Nyankunde alone. The African medical staff deals personally with the individual bed patients about their relationship to Jesus Christ.

Services are held by both men and women in the wards. The African and European staffs meet each week-day morning at 6:30 to discuss the results of the personal work and to pray together. Friday evening is the regular missionary staff prayer meeting in Dr. Becker’s home.

On Sunday mornings groups of Africans – staff, medical students, houseboys, teachers, etc., go out in a regular village evangelism program. In the past two years six small village chapels have been built by the new believers in their own villages. Many have come to know the Lord in this program as well.

It has been agreed for several years now that the ongoing of medical missionary work in northeast Congo is contingent upon training a capable African hospital and dispensary staff. Other agencies such as the government are doing nothing along these lines in our area.

Staff, equipment and physical plant to create and maintain such a school has been a matter of a good deal of prayer and work. Dr. Helen Roseveare with her fine nurse assistants, Misses Lillian Fuchsloch and Jill Thompstone, have undertaken this task.

Currently there are over 50 male medical students in the nurses course, plus approximately 20 girls studying to be mid-wives under Dr. Ruth Dix and Miss Mary Hayward. From these schools our dispensary and hospital staffs will come. We are constantly upgrading the courses and entrance requirements to ultimately attain an equivalent to our post-high school R.N. level. Work is being done toward establishment of a Christian Medical College at Kisangani for the training of Congolese doctors. We all follow this project with keen interest as well.

As can be imagined, texts and school supplies are difficult to come by. We are obliged to formulate most course materials on our own.

The cooperating missions now supply, as the Lord enables, funds and staff to the Center. The Center reciprocates in supplying trained African medical staff for these mission hospitals and dispensaries. In addition we try to supply drugs from the Center, emergency flight service, radio consultation service and regular visits to the unmanned mission hospitals served by the Center.

In the providence of God, we trust the work will continue to expand with a medico-spiritual outreach. Building projects have been planned and given their priorities for the next years. We have attempted to assess our minimum missionary medical staff requirements for the next five years.

This project with no guaranteed support is, we believe, a venture of faith. We are convinced the Lord has brought Centre Medical Evangelique into being. Because of His manifest leading and blessings on this work in the past, we are confidently looking to Him and His people for the days ahead.

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