Thank you for that input JC. I had heard of the Miraj Hospital but mainly from Gulf Arabs with kidney ailments who bypassed Bombay in favor of the treatment there. Didn't know it was called Wanles after a Canadian.
Would appreciate other input also as many Goanet folk would be knowledgable about the Nurses especially a certain generous doctor EP an alumnus of the GMC Bombay. I failed to mention Nair Hospital whose Dean a Doctor Almeida from Cuncolim was a nice man. The fact that he allowed me to take his daughter out in my college days, had nothing to do with it. Roland."J. Colaco < jc>" <cola...@gmail.com> wrote:Comment: 1. Very well written. Easy flow. 2. Thank you Roland for writing it and Thank you Eddie for sharing it with us. 3. Enjoyed reading it very much. Delightful. 4. If I may: because of logistics, difficult patients from Goa (esp South Goa) were reportedly transported to Miraj - the home of the very well known Wanles medical school and hospital. BTW: Wanless was a Torontonian who did humanitarian work in India. 5. With the opening up of air-travel, those who could accord traveled to Bombay's Jaslok hospital. jc On Sunday, September 9, 2012, Eddie Fernandes wrote: By Roland Francis Source: Goan Voice UK. 9 Sep. 2012 at www.goanvoice.org.uk Full text: Although the first practical and modern nurses in India were trained by a group of medical missionaries sent from Britain after the 1857 'sepoy' mutiny which was the first major pang of an Indian independence struggle, the nursing profession in that country formally began with establishment of a Trained Nurses Association in 1908 leading to a formal ordnance in 1947 followed by the setting up of a nursing council in 1949. It was during this period that Anglo Indian women flocked to the profession and young Goan women quickly followed. Nursing was a glamorous profession then, like air stewardesses were until quite recently when unions fought for and the courts agreed that a flying career should not depend on age or beauty. Nurses were taken for training only from good-looking, personable, western dressed Indian women and in those days that meant Anglo-Indians and Goans. Although other Indian girls did their best to join in, their families and Hindu society would not allow for it. The likelihood of their women touching wounds and healing fevered brows was not something educated Hindu families wished to contemplate. Goan women were not as stylish and swank as their Anglo nursing counterparts and therefore took longer to climb the hospital ladder on top of which sat the Anglo matron, but what they lacked in personality and facile language, they made up with hard work, a gentle touch and a less imperious attitude. Bombay rocked then. It was pre-independence India or just after that and Bombay was the center of the British Near, Middle and Far East jurisdictions. Tommies were brought in for R&R as a respite for their battles in the North-East, Burma, Singapore and countries all through the sea lanes to Australia. Later it was Brit soldiers and civilians repatriating from a lost crown jewel. The city was in a joyous, hedonistic turmoil. Money flowed as if through a high pressured tap and the Goans were in the midst of it, as waiters in the Taj, Monginis, Gordons, Venice, Bombellis and other top restaurants getting fat tips, as civil staff in the naval dockyards, working for all the overtime pay they wanted, as musicians in the best bands entertaining the wealthy and as fast rising supervisors and senior officers in the divisional railways, Bombay Telephones, Post and Telegraphs and every other British dominated enterprise. The Anglos were leaving for England and Goans were thought to be their best replacements, a good fit for the mantle of high positions. More Goan women followed their earlier pioneers into the nursing profession. The pay was nothing to write home about, but in the hospitals they served, high level contacts were made, important impressions of their work formed and good husbands attracted like bees to flowers. These contacts were later useful to get children admitted to prestigious schools, jobs that were impossible to normally get were opened up with a word or two and a second income introduced into the family equation that helped no end. This was a new trend. In those days one income, that of the male, was the norm. A blow was struck for female Goan liberation. Simultaneously, Goan medical doctors, specialists in every medical discipline came to dominate Bombay. They were educated not only in Portuguese Goa, but also in top Bombay teaching hospitals and interned with them. Private hospitals were rare and the public hospitals like St. George's, King Edward Memorial, and the Grant Medical College at the JJ Hospital, were state and municipal run, with a sound British medical administration and high standards. Goan doctors conducted pioneering operations, ran tight medical ships and were well respected with their services desired by all sections of the Bombay population. Goan doctors asked for Goan nurses when they could, not out of a sense of common identity, but because these Goan nurses were second to none. Between them they accommodated many Goans who came to the city for major treatment even though most of them could not afford it. Complicated medical treatment in Goa was lacking and going to Bombay was suggested by doctors in Goa themselves. And then as quickly as it happened, the phenomenon disappeared. Goan women became attracted to well-paying secretarial positions in large corporations and nurses from the state of Kerala rushed in to fill the vacuum. Internationally, Filipinas - Catholic and good nurses like the Goans - became that country's biggest export to the Middle East, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere. An era ended not only of Goan nurses but of a Bombay that was once all things to all people - wide and as far as the Empire in the east could reach. By Roland Francis (roland.fran...@gmail.com)