Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions - Roland Allen; Thomas Cochrane

But in medical work, when we are considering the need of the district, another factor of importance often enters. The medicals of the mission are often not the only men meeting that need. There are often others, Government officials, or private practitioners, who, from the point of view of medical practice, are doing the same work. The medical need of a district where the missionary doctor is the only exponent of western medicine is not the same as that of the district where he is competing with Government or private doctors fully trained as he is. Consequently it is essential in order to understand the position that we should know what other, non-missionary, medical assistance is available, and we need the following table:—

——————————————————————————————————-
|Hospitals.|Qualified|Assistants.|Nurses.|Dispensaries.|Beds.
| |Practi- | | | |
tioners. | | | |
————|—————|————-|—————-|———-|——————-|—-
| | | | | |
Mission-| | | | | |
ary| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ___
——————————————————————————————————
| | | | | |
Non- | | | | | |
Mission-| | | | | |
ary| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ___
| | | | | |
——————————————————————————————————-

If any surveyor finds it difficult to fill in such a table, he must make an estimate, but he ought to realise that a table of the kind is a necessary part of any appeal for increased support; for support cannot be reasonably given to his work on the ground of this medical need unless these facts are known. Of course that does not mean that support ought to be given or withheld solely on the statistics so provided. There may be a thousand reasons for strengthening and enlarging work where this table would suggest less need; but no support should be given in ignorance of these facts.

Then we need tables to reveal, as far as such tables can reveal anything, the extent of the medical mission work done in the year.

——————————————————————————————————
District|Area|Popul-|Hospital |Dispensary,|Total|Propor- |Remarks
| |ation |Patients in|Patients in|Pat- |tion of |and
| | |Year |Year |ients|Patients |Conclu-
| | | | | |to Popul-|sions
| | | | | |ation |
——————————————————————————————————-
| | | | | | |
| | |M.|F.|Child|M.|F.|Child| | |
| | | | | | | | | | |
——————————————————————————————————-
| | | | | | | | | | |
________|____|______|__|__|_____|__|__|_____|_____|_________|________

Turning then from the medical need to be met, we proposed to inquire into the medical work as an evangelistic agency. This inquiry is hard to formulate; but we suggest that the three tables appended, taken in conjunction with the preceding, would throw certain light on this question, and would help towards a true understanding.

First, we inquire into the relative extent to which the medical workers make use of the assistance of evangelistic workers. This table would not reveal the evangelistic influence of the hospital. On the one hand, there is sometimes a tendency for the medical men and women to do medical work exclusively, and to leave all religious work to the evangelistic workers, and to give way to the temptation to imagine that if evangelistic workers read or preach in the waiting-room and visit the patients, the medicals can be satisfied that they have done their duty as medical missionaries. On the other hand, a medical who does his medical work in the Spirit, who speaks to and prays with his patients, exercises an evangelistic influence wider and deeper than that of many of the evangelistic workers directly so called, and in such a case the fact that the evangelistic workers are apparently lacking in the hospital does not at all show that the medical work is not a strong evangelistic force. But any danger of misguidance which might arise if this table stood alone must be counteracted by the other tables; for the three can be taken together. And when this allowance has been made the table is useful with the others, and lights one side of the question before us.

[Footnote 1: By "on staff" we mean regularly attached to, or regularly visiting.]

When we have seen the extent to which the medicals use the evangelistic workers in their institutions, we need to know the extent to which the medicals assist the evangelistic workers outside the institutions. We put this in the form of a table designed to reveal the extent to which the medicals assist in evangelistic tours, helping the evangelistic workers on tour, either by healing the sick on the spot, or by sending them to the hospitals, or by preaching, or in all these ways.