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| Franciscan Sisters
of Immaculate Conception
86 Saracen Street
Glasgow
G22 5AD
Tel: 0141 336 3027
Fax: 0141 336 4096
Charity No SC 006881 7109 |
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| Special Feature |
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| Our primary apostolate as a congregation
has always been an educational one, but never exclusively
so. From our earliest days in Glasgow, the Sisters
were very much involved in visiting and caring for
the sick. Epidemics of cholera and typhoid regularly
afflicted the city of the 1840’s and many
Irish immigrant families, living in the most squalid
conditions, were all too vulnerable. They needed
all the help they could get and the Sisters gave
it willingly. And while there were no formally trained
medical personnel in the early community, Veronica
and Adelaide had brought with them a wealth of knowledge
and experience from their own days in the Monastery
of Notre Dame des Anges at Tourcoing. One of the
things for which the Monastery was famous was its
herbal remedies, and the sick of the area automatically
turned to the monastery for medicines and for nursing
care. When illness finally forced Mother Veronica
to abandon her missionary life and return to Tourcoing,
she spent the rest of a very long life in the monastery
pharmacy, making “pastilles” for the
sick. |
| So while it might not have been the
primary focus of the early Sisters’ apostolate
in Glasgow, there’s no doubt that healthcare,
in all its many forms, was always a concern. Following
the Tourcoing model, the community always had its
“Infirmary” where the sick could be
cared for, and one of the most important community
appointments was always that of “Infirmarian”.
And while formal healthcare never really developed
in Glasgow, simply because education was at that
time the greater need, it was a very different situation
when the Sisters arrived in Nigeria in 1950. The
need for education was great; but in a country where
malaria, typhoid, cholera and fevers of all kinds
claimed too many lives, and where too many women
died in childbirth, it was not long before the Sisters
realised there was just as great a need for a hospital
and well trained nurses. |
So it was that one of
the young missionary volunteers, Sister Emmanuel
Gallagher, was sent off to London to train at the
hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth. Others followed
her, and before long the mission at Oshogbo had
a hospital.
In English, it was known as Fatima Hospital; in
Yoruba – Jaleyemi Hospital. Over the years
it developed into a full general hospital with its
own Nursing School. |
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| The hospital flourishes
to this day, and many projects have developed from
it – the maternity unit at Badagry; the motherless
and abandoned babies’ unit that Sr. Elizabeth
cares for; the HIV/AIDS involvement in both Nigeria
and Kenya; the rehabilitation unit for the handicapped
at Badagry.
Sisters have now trained as doctors, nurses, sister
tutors, hospital managers and lab technicians, and
the medical/healthcare apostolate remains a crucial
one for all of Africa. |
| On the home front, our involvement
has developed along more specialist or para-medical
lines. Sisters Rosaria and Maria Goretti have spent
a lifetime in the work of Innocents and Pro-Life;
Sisters Gertrude, Bernard and Bernadette pioneered
much of the social care offered to the profoundly
handicapped within Glasgow Archdiocese; Sister Anne
Mary has specialised in palliative care and works
with St. Andrew’s Hospice in Airdrie; and
many of the Sisters remain actively involved in
chaplaincy work, in visiting the sick at home or
in hospital, assisting with bereavement counselling
and such like. |
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A real live Tribal Chief:
It’s not surprising that Sister Emmanuel Gallagher,
who pioneered our medical apostolate in Nigeria,
quickly became one of the best known figures in
the town of Oshogbo. So great was her contribution
to the life of the area that the local King took
the most unusual step of naming her one of his Chiefs.
She became Sister Chief Iya Abiye of Oshogbo, and
to this day the people remember her as their “Iya”.
A native of Letterkenny in Donegal, Sister celebrates
her Golden Jubilee this year and though she is officially
retired, remains as active as ever. She can be seen
every morning heading for the nearby Allander Court
Nursing Home where she volunteers her services to
patients, staff and visitors alike! |
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