Indonesian Methodists plan to build a hospital on Sumatra that would train doctors in a Christian atmosphere in what is a heavily Muslim nation.

And United Methodists in the United States plan to supply the medical equipment for the new hospital, according to The Rev. Dr. Robert Howerton, Jr., assistant general secretary for health and welfare ministries.

Howerton and other GBGM staff recently visited Indonesia, which is enduring its worst economic and political crisis in three decades. It also has the world's fourth-largest population, at more than 200 million.

The Indonesian church, called Gereja Methodist Indonesia (GMI), plans to build the teaching hospital over the next two years in Medan, where GMI is headquartered. The hospital would serve the existing Methodist Medical School, a branch of the Methodist University in Medan.

Rice is spread for drying outside in a rural village in Indonesia. Hunger is a major problem in the wake of the economic crisis.

The Methodist Health Care System of Memphis, Tennessee, has agreed to equip the hospital, Howerton said. There are 72 United Methodist-related hospitals in the U.S.

"The hospital is being built primarily for the doctors in the Methodist Medical School," Howerton said. "They've had no place to train, at least in a Christian environment. They're having to use the government hospitals to train. They want to train the doctors in a Christian environment. Indonesia is a heavily Muslim country."

The hospital will hold about 250 beds and be served by up to 100 doctors, Howerton said. "It's going to be a training hospital so there'd be a lot bigger ratio of doctors to patients," he said.

Cost of construction will probably be about $500,000 and GMI plans to raise the money, Howerton said. "They can build the hospital much cheaper than we could" in the U.S., he said.

"It's ironic, I think," Howerton said, "that the Methodists are undertaking to build this huge, expensive facility in a time when the economy in Indonesia is at a low point. Which I think is a reflection of the faith of the Methodist Christians in that nation."

The donated medical equipment will probably "run several million dollars," Howerton said. "The medical equipment will run more than the hospital."

Bishop H. Doloksaribu of the autonomous Methodist Church in Indonesia.

He also said construction will be in three stages, starting with the ambulatory care section, to be completed by fall 1999. The outpatient section will be built in the second stage and in the third, the inpatient section, including operating rooms and an intensive care unit. As soon as a section is constructed it will be equipped.

The Methodist Health Care System of Memphis hopes to procure much of the equipment through donations from medical equipment companies in the U.S., Howerton said, and will also ask the help of other United Methodist-related hospitals nationwide.

The only existing Methodist hospital in Indonesia is in Medan and has about 100 beds and ten doctors, Howerton said.

September 23, 1998

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