Published by: Friends of Vellore, Flempton Hall, Bury Road, Flempton, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk IP28 6EG Tel: 01284 728453 Website: CHRISTIAN MEDICAL COLLEGE AND HOSPITAL, VELLORE, S.INDIA www.friendsofvellore.org ISSUE No. 139 · SPRING 2013 REG. CHARITY No. 209168 All correspondence should be addressed to the Director, Richard Smith, at the Charity’s Office: Friends of Vellore, Flempton Hall, Bury Road, Flempton, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk IP28 6EG, UK. Telephone: 01284 728453, Fax: 0871 2439240, e-mail:
[email protected], Website: www.friendsofvellore.org CMC: Mission of Hope When I first went to CMC nearly 10 years ago, the hospital was seeing nearly 1.4 million patients a year and it felt hugely busy. Now the numbers are in excess of 2 million – corridors, store rooms, waiting areas and even is reluctance to turn anyone away especially about a 50% increase and the Vellore campus is outdoor areas pressed into patient accomm- those who may have sold everything or borrowed heaving with staff, patients and their families. odation. The Director, Dr.Sunil Chandy, confided money to travel long distances to seek help in There is great pressure on the doctors and that they had agreed to stop taking in patients but Vellore. I must have mentioned an early ex- nurses, the support structures like laboratories, found it impossible to implement control in the perience at CMC when I met a young girl of about equipment and the infrastructure. Other issues face of a tidal wave of concerned families and 8 years old who had travelled from Bengal with like traffic, water shortages and sometimes sick children.