The Clara Swain Hospital in Bareilly - founded by an American lady doctor!!

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 During the colonial time in the 1800s, it was a daring American lady doctor and missionary worker who first started a medical hospital exclusively for native Indian women and children to alleviate their medical problems, using western medicine and treatment. Dr. Clara was was instrumental in saving thousands of women and children who were victims of dreaded diseases in tropical, poorly developed India when western medicine and treatment itself in its infancy. Natives successfully used the Siddha and Ayuevedic medicine, but the results were slow and time-consuming.

The Clara Swain Hospital  in Bareilly, Utter Pradesh  India is .the “oldest and largest Methodist hospital in in this country."  Founded by Dr. Clara Swain, an American Missionary lady doctor in the early 1870s, the hospital catered to the medical needs of women and children in the by-gone era. Presently,it is a famous hospital and once it managed 350 patient beds were in use. Besides, it was a pioneering   lead institution for nursing education in Northern India. Unfortunately, by 1998, the hospital ran into financial problems and could handle only only 30 patients in attendance. Subsequently, the hospital faced near closer under the Methodist Church in India.
 
Thanks to the newly assigned hospital director, Lillian Wallace, a hospital revitalisation program was in place, funded by the General Board of Global Ministries. Consequently, in 2001,that the hospital underwent  several renewal projects, including increase in new  medical equipment, trained staff, and patients. Yet another plus was a separate  grant was  made available to the hospital by the Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries. This was done with a view  to augmenting the nursing school’s facilities. As of 2006, the hospital has designated a wing to diagnose and treat HIV/AIDS patients.

A few business people came forward and took the hospital on lease and improved the medical facilities in 2011. This was done under the guidance of  Mr. Umesh Gautam, the chancellor of Invertis University, Bareilly. The hospital is now the largest multi super speciality hospital of Bareilly (barring two hospitals attached to medical colleges). It hollowed hospital  has all super speciality departments including cardiology, nephrology, neurology, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, urology, gastroenterology with the world class equipment and facilities.

Dr. Clara Swain Wikipedia

Tit-Bits: 
 
01.  Dr. Clara A. Swain (18 July 1834 - 25 December 1910)  a physician and missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church has the distinction of being the world's first missionary doctor in the non-Christian part of the world. 

02. In 1870s,  she was responsible for establishing  the first hospital in India in the orient for women and children.

03. Swain  born in Elmira, Chemung County, New York and raised in Castile, New York.
 
04. She graduated from  the  Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 3 1869, under the direction of the Methodist mission in the USA.

05. In early 1900s she convinced  the Nawob of Rampur to allow her to open medical facilities in his land and finally got more than 45 acres of land free. 

06. Dr. Swain spent the last year of her life in Castile, New York where she died on December 25, 1910 due to old age. She is buried at Grace Cemetery, Castile, New York.

Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Swain_Hospital

http://navrangindia.blogspot.in/2016/11/dr-clara-swain-first-missionary-doctor.html