Enhancing nursing

"The college is not just the building. It is the institution where all of you, spirited, enthusiastic young students and teachers gather together for the purpose of educating yourselves and each other and acquiring knowledge. This building is what makes it possible for you to come together — to learn and play and work together. This is where you will acquire the latest in the arts and sciences of healing and then apply it to help those in need, without prejudice, and to the best of your ability.”

Dr Mehroo Patel’s advice to the 78 young student nurses of the Bel-Air College of Nursing came straight from the heart. Patel, now a grandmother, had interned under premier thoracic surgeon Dr Bomi Billimoria — son of Bel-Air’s visionary founder Dr Rustom Billimoria. Speaking at the inauguration of the College building on the Bel-Air Hospital complex in Panchgani on December 9, 2007, marked more than a homecoming for Chicago-based Patel. Her role as facilitator for the creation of this College demonstrated a surge of joyful thanksgiving for the 94-year-old institution that had seen the launch of her own career.

Now in its second year, the College provides a four year degree program in general and HIV specific nursing and envisages growth to the masters degree from the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nashik. A reciprocal arrangement with the Ruby Hall Hospital in Poona provides practical experience in general medicine for Bel-Air nurses while Ruby Hall nurses will avail of Bel-Air facilities in HIV care. Also participating in the program is the Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, a deemed university in Karad. The College of Nursing of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is offering curricular support.

Clockwise from ext L (L to R): Fr Tomy; Mehroo Patel and Sr Martha flank Mangal Anchan cutting the ceremonial ribbon; Homai Modi receiving UIC plaque from Minu Patel; the College façade

Bel-Air, the sanatorium and hospital founded in 1913 for tuberculosis (TB) patients, then as shunned by society as HIV-AIDS sufferers in our own time, had been handed over by Billimoria to the Indian Red Cross Society in 1964 to ensure its survival as an institution. Once internationally recognized as a haven for the TB afflicted, discovery of a simple cure for the disease had led to the neglect of the institution until a young Catholic priest, Fr Tomy Karyilakulam of the Missionary Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament (MCBS), took on the onus of administering the sprawling campus with its 60+ decrepit structures in 1994. With the backing of the Indian Red Cross Society, Maha­rashtra State Branch, and its honorary secretary Homai Modi and the MCBS, Tomy successfully turned the institution around to address the crying need of the HIV-AIDS afflicted. That it is now one of the topmost hospitals in India in that field was attested to by the personal visit of then President of India Dr Abdul Kalam on its 90th anniversary in 2003. When Patel read of the revival of Bel-Air in Parsiana (October 2003), she and her husband Dr Minu Patel visited Panchagani to see what they could do to help. Tomy, now director of Bel-Air who chairs the Technical Resource Group of the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO)’s third National AIDS Control Project, sought a college of nursing and Minu, a professor of statistics at the College of Nursing of the University of Illinois in Chicago, set the ball rolling.

It was barely a year ago that the ground breaking ceremony for the college building and puja were performed by Modi on the scenic promontory where the structure is now a reality (see "A gift of God,” Parsiana, February 7, 2007). Designed by architect Yayati Taple, with inputs by Chicago architect Kamalrukh Katrak Karkaria according to Patel, the multilevel edifice hugs the hillside, providing panoramic views of the Western Ghats. Taple, structural engineer Shriram Kul­karni and the Devi Construction Company Private Limited which had put up the building in record time were duly honored at the hands of the collector of Satara Vikas Deshmukh who inaugurated their creation. "It is a collector’s social obligation to attend functions, but here I have come willingly,” Deshmukh noted. Visiting hospitals in the US Deshmukh said he found that 25 percent of the doctors were from India. "We have a large pool of talent. Let us hope it will be used in our own country,” he added.

The commemorative jashan

A specially erected pavilion on the land facing the college (where the college hostel is planned to come up in the foreseeable future) welcomed a goodly crowd of Red Cross representatives from Bombay, Poona and Delhi. Also present were the local residents and school principals from this hill station preeminently known for its boarding schools. Some of them remembered the Hospital’s years of decline with broken window panes and blocked drains. Unlike her appreciative visitors, Modi is painfully aware of the constant fight against rain seepage and shifting earth that makes the upkeep of the hospital an unending search for resources. Indeed, as she noted in the course of her welcome address, which included a brief history of Bel-Air, that while the building is ready, there is "no money for interior décor or furnishings.” However, Nawshir Mirza, trustee of the Poona Branch of the Indian Red Cross Society quietly shared with Parsiana his faith in Modi’s "relentless powers of persuasion.” And Dr T. S. Jayalakshmi — who represented the Indian Red Cross Society, National Headquarters, New Delhi in the absence of the secretary general Dr S. P. Agarval — declared publicly that she was "very very proud that the Maha­rashtra State Branch has put Bel-Air on the world map…The quality and merit of Bel-Air has been proved by Fr Tomy being made chairman of the National AIDS Control Project.”

Complimenting the Indian Red Cross Society, Fr Tomy and his team, Mangal Anchan, registrar of the Maharashtra State Nursing Council commented on the College seats being fully occupied while in other institutions the seats remained vacant. "The product passing out of this institution will be genuine,” she noted. Dr Sujata K, registrar of the 25-year-old Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences at Karad — a multi disciplinary hospital plus nursing and medical college — promised to continue the collaborative linkage with Bel-Air.

Presenting a report on the College which has been operating since October 26, 2006, its principal Sr Martha T. of the congregation of Jesus Mary Joseph noted that the first batch of 40 students had completed their first year exam and were awaiting their results. A second batch of 38 had taken their place. She spelt out the philosophy of the institution: to enhance the quality of nursing to international levels as also to build the moral, psychological, cultural and spiritual attributes of her students. Aiming to inculcate a desire for "service and care with love,” she noted that the aim was to promote professional and personal values. Martha had visited the UIC in April 2006 to learn about US nursing systems. She was also very appreciative of Chicago resident Porus Dadabhoy who was facilitating the collection and transfer to India of medical books and journals for the college library. A team of qualified visiting professors was now in place, she added.

Top (L to R) Minu Patel, Mangal Anchan, Mehroo Patel, T. S. Jayalakshmi, Sujata K, Sr Martha and Homai Modi Left: Dummies to practise on; Bottom: Students and staff of the College

Minu Patel read out the message from Joan Shaver, professor and dean of UIC College of Nursing, and presented a plaque on her behalf. "Graduates of the Bel-Air College of Nursing will be much in demand in this time of a global nursing shortage,” Shaver noted, adding, "Please know that we are motivated to be partners with the Bel-Air College of Nursing into the future, hopefully to share with each other many opportunities to grow and prosper each of our programs over time…From the first feasibility visit for curriculum consultation by Dr Karen Solheim of our College to now as the opening of a new building, we are impressed with the rapid and remarkable progress in creating a new high quality school of nursing.”

The establishment of an Endowment Fund for the Advancement of Nursing Education in India established by the Patels at UIC had borne the financial cost of Solheim’s feasibility study as well as the trips of Martha and Tomy to Chicago to interact with the UIC College of Nursing. "You are ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Mehroo Patel told the student nurses. Dedicating the event to the memory of father and son Drs Rustom and Bomi Billimoria she noted, "The founder of Bel-Air Dr Rustomji was fondly known as the father of tuberculosis east of the Suez Canal and Bel-Air can be among the best in nursing education (institutions) worldwide. It is you who will make it such. There are others like ourselves who will support you and provide the right environment.”

Urging the young candidates to acquire a research oriented mentality Mehroo continued: "Applying research done in the West or elsewhere is one thing but it is entirely a different experience to do research for your own population in their environment with their diseases and disease fighting ways and means. Uniquely important are the socio-cultural, religious and economic differences. The most significant aspect of your research will be to achieve your goal with less finance, less expensive medicines, tests and technologies for those individuals who are disadvantaged. We hope that after you finish your education you will apply your knowledge and training to serve those most in need in India first and then in other developing countries.”

Initial prayers were offered by the student nurses at the start of the program. This was later followed by a cultural program presented by them. On the eve of the inaugural a jashan had been held on the Hospital campus dedicated to Rustomji and Bomi Billimoria when most of the remaining Parsi residents of Panchgani had attended. Among them were Kate and Mona Irani whose father Jal Irani had started the Boat Club in Mahableshwar; Veerzad, Noshir and Veera Khambatta of Mount View Hotel; Naval Jal and Niloufer Mahableshwarwala of Dina Hotel; retired Captain Shahrukh Bhathena who now works at St Peter’s School as accounts administrator but whose father had served at Bel-Air for 45 years; Kersi and Khorshed Tamboli, trustees of the Panchgani Anjuman who had helped Modi organize the ceremony. The dwindling size of the anjuman which once had dominated the Mahableshwar-Panchgani scene cast an air of nostalgia over the gathering.

In his vote of thanks Tomy acknowledged the "unflinching support” of Kersi Gherda, chairman of the Maharashtra State Branch of the Indian Red Cross Society, and of Modi, found it "difficult to thank Minu and Mehroo” and noted fervently that "the great Dr Billimoria and Bomi continue to be our inspiration.”