History of Medical Mission Sisters in India
Founding of Medical Mission Sisters of North America & the MMS Hospitals in India
“To be a Healing Presence at the Heart of a Wounded World”
Hospitals by MMS in India and the Inception Timeline:
- The Founder of the Medical Mission Sisters of North America (MMS), Mother Anna Dengel, was born in the Austrian Tyrol of Europe, in 1892.
- Having a desire from young age to serve people by becoming a Christian missionary, she became acquainted with the Franciscan Missionaries and in the early 1920s accompanied them to do medical work in North India that also comprised Pakistan.
- While working with the Franciscan sisters in the Islamic Community in Ravalpindi, Pakistan, Anna Dengel witnessed firsthand the unnecessary suffering and untimely deaths of countless women and children from untreated illnesses due to the Muslim custom prohibiting them from receiving medical care administered by male physicians, the only gender with medical degrees and practice back then in their community.
- This senseless disparity convinced Anna Dengel that a group of women health care professionals, who dedicated their lives to God and service, could change the fate of these neglected women and children by bringing them access to the health care they deserved.
- Hence, in 1925, Dr. Anna Dengel laid the foundation for the Medical Mission Community, later known as the Medical Mission Sisters of North America, in Washington, D.C, to dedicate herself and the sisters of her congregation to the service of God in the mission lands.
- Subsequently, numerous women from the United States joined Mother Dengal to become Sisters of her congregation and receive medical training to serve in hospitals in various parts of India.
- In the 1930s, the Medical Mission Sisters started the initiatives to include and train dedicated women from within India for the religious order and in the field of health care, primarily, Nursing.
- Eventually, the sisters extended the training and employment opportunities to lay women and men in various medical specialties as well as for non-medical jobs.
- Medical Mission congregation also expanded to other parts of the world to become diverse in membership and extend the mission of service.
- Today, there are more than 600 sisters from 23 different nations.
- Over the past 90 years, Medical Mission Sisters have tendered care, compassion, employment, guidance, education, hope and career opportunities to millions of individuals throughout the world, sharing one mission:
“To be a Healing Presence at the Heart of a Wounded World”
Hospitals by MMS in India and the Inception Timeline:
- 1939: Kurji Holy Family Hospital (KHFH) Patna, India.
- 1943-1948: Mother Dengel and her sisters worked in St. Catherine’s Hospital, Ravalpindi. After independence and division of the country into India and Pakistan, in 1948, the MMS renamed this hospital as Karachi Holy Family Hospital.
- 1947: Holy Family Hospital, Ranchi District, Bihar, India.
- 1948: Immaculate Heart of Mary Hospital (IHM), Marygiri, Kerala, India.
- 1951: St. Thomas Hospital, Chethipuzha, Kerala, India.
- 1953: Holy Family Hospital, New Delhi, India.
- 000?: Medical Mission Hospital, Thuruthipuram, Kerala, India.