Ursuline nun, an “agent of God’s love and healing” through the medical profession in Assam
Sister Jyothsna is a pediatrician and works at the Nirmala Hospital in the village of Balukdubi. The Ursulines have been in the Indian state since 2006. About 90 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, facing difficult diseases like malaria, typhoid fever, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and intestinal worms. Bad health practices and superstition thrive.
Balukdubi (AsiaNews) – Sister Jyothsna is a nun with the Ursuline Sisters of the Immaculate Virgin Mary (OMI). She has worked for years in Assam, northeastern India, dedicating her missionary vocation to helping poor and needy patients. For her, this means acting as an agent of God’s love and healing through the medical profession.
A trained pediatrician, she offers her medical know-how in Balukdubi, a remote village in Goalpura District (Assam), where the Ursulines run the Nirmala Hospital. "It is my joy to reach those who cannot be reached,” she told AsiaNews.
Her congregation has been present in the Indian state since 2006. For the local population, "the hospital means hope, healing, and happiness,” she said. “Sisters provide healing and compassion as well as a high quality medical service at an affordable cost."
In fact, “It is with this personalised and unique mix of treatment and medicine that we consistently strive to protect the health and well-being of the various communities we serve."
Assam, one of the poorest states in the Union, is home to various tribal groups. Its population is largely illiterate, and disadvantaged. About 90 per cent live below the poverty line in homes built in bamboo with rice as the main staple, under threat from floods, soil erosion and ethnic violence.
"People live day by day,” Sister Jyothsna noted, “selling firewood, raising goats and pigs, growing rice".
Heavy rains are the cause of epidemics and illnesses. The most common are malaria and typhoid fever, whose effects are often aggravated by delays in diagnosis and treatment.
Other medical complications include skin infections and respiratory infections, as well as gastroenteritis, hepatitis, tuberculosis, anemia, malnutrition, and intestinal worms.
Good health practices are not well entrenched in the population. Superstitious attitudes are rooted as are the use of archaic medical practices. In villages, self-medication and reliance on information in stores selling medical drugs are commonplace.
According to Sister Jyothsna, this means "that patients wait until the last moment before taking their illness seriously and going to the hospital," a situation "due to ignorance. In order to control problems, there should be greater health awareness."
Other major issues are early marriages and frequent abortions, "which lead to high infant mortality. Many deliveries still happen at home, due to the lack of medical facilities or distance.”
In light of this, nuns seek to "raise awareness among women and children through various programmes, and basic life-saving treatments. Each month we organise medical camps in the villages."
In addition, “Many patients who come to our hospital with epidemic infections are treated free of charge. Showing God's love is our source of joy and faith."
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