Catholic doctor, Armida Fernandez, receives the Padma Shri Award
One of India's highest honours was bestowed upon the Mumbai neonatologist who drastically cut infant mortality. Founder of India's first milk bank, she also put her work in the service of women in the city slums. Many times, “I have felt God holding my hands,” she said, and “‘This is what you have to do’.”
Mumbai (AsiaNews) – On India's Republic Day, Dr Armida Fernandez, founder and trustee of Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action (SNEHA), was included among the recipients of the prestigious Padma Shri Award. A Catholic, she is a former professor of neonatology and dean of LTMG Hospital in Sion.
Granted by the Government of India, the award recognises her lifelong commitment to improving maternal, child, and paediatric health in India, especially in poor urban areas.
Next Thursday, Dr Fernandez will also receive a papal honour for her long service.
“I truly believe that God has a role and a purpose for each of us, when he brings us into this earth,” Dr Armida Fernandez said, speaking to AsiaNews. “I have shared this several times. I have felt God holding my hands and telling me - 'This is what you have to do next'.”
Dr Fernandez, who lives in Bandra, attends Mass daily at the Basilica of the Mount or at St Andrew's Church. “I receive Jesus in communion to go out to help others,” she explained.
In 1977, Padma Shri awardee started the Department of Neonatology at the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital (LTMG), informally known as the Sion Hospital.
“In the late 1980s, when I was working as a paediatrician and neonatologist in paediatrics, babies were dying.” The head of the department “told me: ‘Please leave everything you're doing and concentrate on how to bring down babies’ deaths.’ That was God telling me what to do...
“God spoke through the head of the department, telling me to do something about infant mortality in the intensive care unit (ICU) for premature babies. It was heartbreaking to see so many babies die,” Fernandez said. “We were losing 70 per cent of them to diarrhoea and sepsis. I instinctively knew there was something we were not doing right.”
After many days of careful analysis, she identified the cause of the diarrhoea in contaminated formula and baby bottles.
“We were delivering over 8,000 babies per year at that time! Even the smallest compromise on hygiene when nurses rush around rinsing hands in haste or don’t sterilise feeding bottles thoroughly can put premature babies at high risk,” she explained.
“So I finally decided to do away with formula milk and feeding bottles, and got mothers to step into the ICU to nurse the babies. There is nothing more healing than a mother’s touch,” she added.
As mortality rates began to drop, Dr Fernandez began her tireless campaign for breastfeeding. Since not all mothers could produce enough milk, she decided to use other mothers' milk to feed the neediest infants.
“We persuaded and encouraged mothers to donate their milk to other mothers,” she noted.
After a fellowship at Oxford in this area, Dr Fernandez opened the first milk bank in 1989, ensuring that newborns would receive the essential nutrients from breast milk. Today, the Sion Human Milk Bank saves the lives of about three dozen babies every day.
“My team at the hospital got healthy lactating mothers to express surplus milk, which was then pasteurised and saved. With the arrival of HIV detection tests, the mothers were also tested for HIV,” she said.
In less than four years, infant mortality at Sion Hospital dropped from 70 per cent to 12 per cent.
“Bishop Allwyn D'silva, then Fr Allwyn D'silva, was working in Dharavi, Asia's largest Slum,” Dr Fernandez noted. “He told me that he had some money and said, 'why don't you and your department from Sion hospital work in the slums.”
Thus, “we began working in the slums in Bombay-Dharavi, Kurla, Wadala. Then I realised, we cannot work only in the hospitals. We need to change behaviour. Social change was essential”, she explained.
Seeing the success of this simple but remarkably effective idea, Dr Fernandez decided to perform her work with the poor people living in slums who desperately needed help.
Initially, she organised field trips once a week, accompanied by a group of doctoral students to whom she taught neonatology.
Then, in 1999, she founded SNEHA, a Mumbai-based organisation focused on maternal and child health and women's empowerment.
“When I started SNEHA, I was at a relative's wedding where I met a cousin who said to me: ‘You want to work in the slums! Take my house in Nashik District in Maharashtra, and sell it and use the funds for your slum projects. The next day unfortunately he passed away, but his widow sold the house and gave me the money for the work in the slums. This was God once again speaking to me, telling me: 'You have to work in the slums'.”
For nearly three decades, SNEHA has been working in the fields of maternal and child health and nutrition and the prevention of violence against women and children in the city's slums.
“Even in palliative care, God took my only child, my daughter Romilla who died of cancer. I saw her suffering, and asked myself what I can do for others with cancer, and started palliative care. Today Romila Palliative Care (RPC), named after my daughter, serves as a reassuring centre for patients suffering from life-limiting illnesses,” she explained.
For Dr Fernandez, “We cannot take credit for anything we do in life,” attributing the Padma Shri award to all those who worked with her.
“God talks through different ways, through voices, through situations and I think that is what is happening all my life. From the beginning, I had the best teams.
“In Sion hospital I had a good department, in SNEHA and in palliative care, I have an amazing team of committed and dedicated people working together. That's the story of my life,” Dr Fernandez said.
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24/06/2024 19:07
