Witch Doctors "Patients Go To Mission Hospital

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30955, 11 January 1966, Page 2

Witch Doctors "Patients Go To Mission Hospital

Witch doctors of the Luban tribe in North Katanga are shrewd opportunists. They take high consultation fees from their patients and promptly advise them to go to the Mulongo Mission Hospital for treatment.

“We quite often find that our nonChristian African patients have already been to a witch doctor and the majority of Lubans are still heathens,” said Miss Audrey Smith, a nurse on the staff of the Congo hospital, in Christchurch yesterday.

The hospital, about 65 miles from the nearest town (Manono), was run by the Christian Mission in Many Lands (Open Brethren), she said. Its staff consisted of an Irishman, Dr. Ray Williams and his wife, who also was a doctor; an English, and Australian and a New Zealand nurse: and about 20 Christian Africans trained by the mission. The people in the area had great confidence in the hospi-i tai and accepted its services gratefully. “Even during the worst of the Congo troubles and at the height of anti-white feeling, the Africans did not try to drive up out,” said Miss Smith, who joined the hospital staff 14 years ago. Nevertheless, the three European nurses were asked to leave the area in 1961 because of tribal fighting. Miss Smith returned to Mulongo in

1 1963. Fighting broke out again and the nurses were sent 1 to safety again for two months. ■ Back again only eight months, Miss Smith had a serious car accident and was eventually sent home to New Zealand on convalescent leave. She is spending it in Wellington with her family and working as a I relieving night sister in a convalescent home. Her visit to Christchurch was to attend the Nurses’ Christian Fellowship conference. She hopes to return to Mulongo for duty in June. “It is very difficult to give lup this work,” she said. “The people want us and they need | us.” The hospital treated about j 23,000 patients a year, getting by without such facilities as [running water, she said. All the water carried to the hospital had to be boiled. The hospital compound included a 22-bed maternity ward, an operating theatre, surgical ward, leprosarium and an outpatients’ department.

The official language of the hospital was French, but the staff usually talked to the Africans in their own language, Luban. Because of the heat—the average temperature was in the eighties and 70 degrees was regarded as a cold winter day—few white people could live in that part of Africa for long without a furlough. “I find five years is plenty without a break,” Miss Smith said. “Some Europeans cannot stay there for more than three years.” There was little to do in Mulongo for a nurse off duty, she said. “My main outlet is visiting the villages to hold Bible meetings for women and children; I read or play scrabble with the other nurses. There is just nowhere to go when you are not working, but you get used to it.”