SCOTT SHEPARD

Dr. Myrna Velasquez, medical director of Mary Johnston Hospital in the Phillipines, visits with Rev. Dr. Gary Gunderson, left, and Niels French of Methodist Heatlhcare.

Methodist Healthcare, Inc., has already reached into Russia and Africa, and now is making a move on Asia by partnering with Mary Johnston Hospital in Manila, Philippines.

The partnership is just beginning and could take many forms, from expert exchange programs to equipment donations. Mary Johnston is the only Methodist hospital in the Philippines, where 93 percent of the population is Catholic.

The medical director of Mary Johnston, internist Myrna Puno-Velasquez, was in Memphis in August for the grand tour, meeting people at Methodist and trading ideas. Mary Johnston is building a new Cancer Center to mark its 100th anniversary, and one idea Velasquez picked up is rather embarrassing for a church-affiliated hospital, in a nation where most people are devout.

“We already have our building plans approved for the Cancer Center, which is separate from the hospital,” she said. “But we forgot to provide for a chapel.”

She’s also picked up other ideas for the Cancer Center and the rest of the hospital. Most impressive was the Gamma Knife, on the campus of Methodist-University Hospital, but Mary Johnston doesn’t have $4 million for a machine that would be used rarely. Velasquez is in the hunt for a linear accelerator and a CT scanner, which is still impressive.

“Other centers in the Philippines still use cobalt,” she said.

Mary Johnston has evolved into a 150-bed tertiary medical center, affiliated with more than a dozen colleges of nursing, medicine and allied health. It has 300 employees, including 115 nurses, plus 200 active admitting physicians, and 27 residents.

During her visit Velasquez, was not shy about asking for some hardware, including ventilators, operating room tables, OR lights, a laparoscope and OR scopes. Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC, has already given such items as electric beds and defibrillators. Coincidentally, Sibley is just off MacArthur Boulevard; Gen. Douglas MacArthur is still revered in the Philippines for leading the fight to rout Japanese occupation in World War II.

She isn’t shy because Mary Johnston is mission driven, and is in the heart of the Tondo District of Manila. Tondo is notorious for its huge open dump, where thousands of squatter families scavenge to survive on the waste of the other 12 million who live in Metro Manila.

That’s just one of the populations that Mary Johnston serves.

“American hospitals change out their equipment every few years, but it still works fine,” she said. “Because of our heavy use, we have to change our equipment and replenish it.”

Along with charity care, the hospital also sends out medical teams, including students, to provide exams and get people started on their medications. The hospital has adopted two communities in Tondo: Parola, which teems with criminals, drug addicts, the mentally ill and outcasts, and Barangay 123, which is full of squatters living in shacks.

Through funding by the General Board of the United Methodist Church, the hospital provides child nutrition, vaccinations for Hepatitis B, tuberculosis and dengue, plus youth Bible studies and summer camps. A particular focus is teaching mothers to breastfeed. Infant formula is heavily marketed in the Philippines with manufacturers claiming that formula will make babies smarter. Just 16 percent of Filipinas breastfeed their babies; poor mothers often cut the formula with water to make it last longer, unintentionally starving their babies.

It’s in the outreach area where Methodist employees and local students can play a significant role.

“It’s important that every collaboration be mutual and not one-sided,” said Niels French, director of interfaith health programs at Methodist. “If we have associates work at Mary Johnston, they will come back renewed and re-attuned to their calling of caring for others.”

Methodist has already established medical outreach in Russia, and worked with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to form a partnership with Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe. St. Jude does cutting-edge research on HIV/AIDS while Zimbabwe has an epidemic of the disease.

Gary Gunderson, senior vice president of Health and Welfare Ministries, is now working with Memphis Theological Seminary on a program for mid-career people in social service fields who want to expand their understanding of faith-based programs. Public programs are increasingly partnering with church-sponsored social programs. Gunderson intends for his students to spend time in a place like Manila to hone their skills.

Even in a city the size of Manila, Philippine hospitals tend to be many but small. Mary Johnston is near three government hospitals plus a few private facilities. Up to 10 percent of Mary Johnston’s patients are charity cases, but they also tend to be the most expensive. The local police often dump trauma cases on the doorstep.

“One patient we had came in with multiple gunshot wounds,” Velasquez said. “He cost 600,000 pesos, and he didn’t have a single centavo.”

That converts to some $13,000, which may sound cheap for a major trauma, but is major money in the Philippines where the World Bank estimates that half the population lives on less than $2 a day.

One thing Velasquez noticed frequently is the degree of waste in American healthcare. She’s accustomed to squeezing every resource, as part of the mission.

Mary Johnston’s history is humbling. It was started by a missionary physician, Rebecca Parish of Indiana. Daniel Johnston funded the conversion from a walk-in clinic to a hospital with a gift of $12,500, as a memorial to his deceased wife, Mary Johnston.

One tale of courage came in 1945 during the Battle of Manila. With hand to hand combat in the street and artillery shells falling from the sky, the hospital went up in flames. Despite the danger, the director of nursing services, Librada Javalera, managed to rescue 40 years worth of medical records.




October 2007