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Publicity for the Burlington Self-Survey on Human Relations

""Missions Accomplished"" Page 29

Mission: A Ministry of Health

HIGH ON a beautiful hill in Puerto Rico stands Ryder Hospital, looking down on a slum of wretched shacks. The people of this island have a tuberculosis rate double that of the States; eighty per cent of them have hookworm. Their diet grossly lacks all nutritional value save calories. For them, aside from the city of San Juan, there is one doctor for each 10,000 people. 
When the United States annexed Puerto Rico in 1898, our Congregational Christian Churches assumed their share of evangelizing this nominally Roman Catholic but actually secular little island Ryland Hospital in one institution through which the Board of Home Missions performs a Mission of health. 

Beyond the Walls
The support of our churches, through the Board of Home Missions, enables Ryder Hospital to carry its work beyond its own walls into the surrounding countryside. Its basic financial support is given as a part of Our Christian World Mission. Through Friendly Service, scores of churches across the country contribute supplies, and a host on unglamorous articles like used shoes,, necessary in fighting hookworm. In the past biennium a doctor and an obstetrician have been added to Ryder';s staff by individual churches in Missouri and California. A Maryland church, organized only recently with substantial help from Board of Home Missions is commissioning a dentist, who will add dental health to the hospital's program.

Not By Medicine Alone
Ryder's staff takes pride in its concern for broad community welfare beyond the prime responsibility of medical service. The staff tackled head on the two sources of the island's difficulties. low income and the terrible problem of over population. In legislative hearings on increased minimum wages for insular hospital employees. Ryder alone among the proprietary, public and missionary hospital refused to protest the proposed increases. 
Our hospital's staff cooperated with a Congregational Christian Service Committee work camp in summer of 1953 to build a playground on a corner of its land for children living in the squalor at the foot of the hospital's lovely hill. Ryder has secured substantial Federal aid for a training school for practical nurses, to augment the island's meager medical and nursing personnel. 

Gospel Is Not a Price
"Rice and Bean" Congregationalists are not sought at Ryder; receiving the Gospel is not a price to be paid for medical or social services. God's concern for all men is personified to patients not only by the hospital chaplain in his quiet rounds and his group worship services for ambulatory patients, but also by the ministry of professional skill and personal dedication of the staff. Its members, all active in the local church, assume one more responsibility. They strive to quicken the Christian faith of others in the medical profession on the island. At their instigation, doctors meet in a series of vocational conferences to consider ethical problems of their daily work in the light of the Christian faith. 
Thus do our Congregational Christian Churches through their Board of Home Missions, carry out God;s Ministry of health to the Puerto Ricans.

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Mission: A Ministry of Health HIGH ON a beautiful hill in Puerto Rico stands Ryder Hospital, looking down on a slum of wretched shacks. The people of this island have a tuberculosis rate double that of the States; eighty per cent of them have hookworm. Their diet grossly lacks all nutritional value save calories. For them, aside from the city of San Juan, there is one doctor for each 10,000 people. When the United States annexed Puerto Rico in 1898, our Congregational Christian Churches assumed their share of evangelizing this nominally Roman Catholic but actually secular little island Ryland Hospital in one institution through which the Board of Home Missions performs a Mission of health. Beyond the Walls The support of our churches, through the Board of Home Missions, enables Ryder Hospital to carry its work beyond its own walls into the surrounding countryside. Its basic financial support is given as a part of Our Christian World Mission. Through Friendly Service, scores of churches across the country contribute supplies, and a host on unglamorous articles like used shoes,, necessary in fighting hookworm. In the past biennium a doctor and an obstetrician have been added to Ryder';s staff by individual churches in Missouri and California. A Maryland church, organized only recently with substantial help from Board of Home Missions is commissioning a dentist, who will add dental health to the hospital's program. Not By Medicine Alone Ryder's staff takes pride in its concern for broad community welfare beyond the prime responsibility of medical service. The staff tackled head on the two sources of the island's difficulties. low income and the terrible problem of over population. In legislative hearings on increased minimum wages for insular hospital employees. Ryder alone among the proprietary, public and missionary hospital refused to protest the proposed increases. Our hospital's staff cooperated with a Congregational Christian Service Committee work camp in summer of 1953 to build a playground on a corner of its land for children living in the squalor at the foot of the hospital's lovely hill. Ryder has secured substantial Federal aid for a training school for practical nurses, to augment the island's meager medical and nursing personnel. Gospel Is Not a Price "Rice and Bean" Congregationalists are not sought at Ryder; receiving the Gospel is not a price to be paid for medical or social services. God's concern for all men is personified to patients not only by the hospital chaplain in his quiet rounds and his group worship services for ambulatory patients, but also by the ministry of professional skill and personal dedication of the staff. Its members, all active in the local church, assume one more responsibility. They strive to quicken the Christian faith of others in the medical profession on the island. At their instigation, doctors meet in a series of vocational conferences to consider ethical problems of their daily work in the light of the Christian faith. Thus do our Congregational Christian Churches through their Board of Home Missions, carry out God;s Ministry of health to the Puerto Ricans.