NamKham Hospital
NamKham Hospital began in 1896 with Dr. M.B. Kirkpatrick.
Dr. Robert Harper, Dr. C.A. Kirkpatrick Jr, Dr. Rittenhouse, Dr. Robin Hrasu, Dr. Gordon Stifler Seagrave, Dr. Grace Seagrave, Dr. Ah Pon, and Dr. Ai Lun had served as missionary doctors.
The hospital was not only treating patients it also held the gospel meeting six days a week. The record for the first six months showed 3,396 patients had attended the meetings and 3,785 patients had been treated, about 200 at their homes, and 4,389 prescriptions had been furnished.
The first missionary doctor to serve at NamKham hospital was Dr. M.B. Kirkpatrick in 1896.
Dr. Robert Harper arrived at NamKham and took over medical work from Kirkpatrick on June 1, 1902.
The new hospital was completed in 1904. The nursing training program in NamKham hospital was very famous in the country. The hospital services were so successful that many patients from Burma proper and China came to seek treatment.
Dr. C.A. Kirkpatrick Junior arrived in ShweLi Valley in 1913.
Dr. Gordon Stifler Seagrave arrived NamKham in 1922 November 11. (age 25)
He was born on March, 18, 1897.
He graduated from the Doane Academy in Granville in 1914 and from Denison University, with a Bachelor of arts. in biology, in 1917. He then entered the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. He received the Doctor of Medicine in 1921. (age 24)
He worked very hard on medical mission, education and evangelism.
Dr. Ah Pon came to help NamKham Hospital in 1927.
It was reported in 1930 by Dr. Seagrave, “NamKham welcomed the first American nurse ever seen here. With this addition to the staff, we hope to obtain government recognition for the hospital as a training school for nurses and midwives. We have sixteen in training now. One is running a small hospital and dispensary of her own, fifty miles away, and reports indicate that she is proving a great blessing to the people of her section who have never had medical aid of any sort before. All the girls who have graduated or are under training are Christians, and the impact is quite apparent to the patients. The Christian influence of the hospital cannot be measured. We are now building a new hospital, which is being financed by Woodward Avenue Church of Detroit in memory of Dr. Robert Harper (deceased 1925). We expect this new building with large ward space, administrative room, dispensary, and private room to be worth a memorial well fitted to carry on a worthwhile task.”
The Detroit church that had sponsored Dr. Robert Harper’s work offered $20,000 to build a new hospital at Namkham as a Harper Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Robert Harper Memorial Hospital was built in NamKham in 1930. (26 years after the first hospital)
It was built of smooth stones collected from NamZaLe and NamYaKau. Kham Ye was appointed the head of the laborers during building process. A worker was paid Kyat 2 for one day work. Pu Pao and Ai Kham were the drivers of the truck. Ye Hton, one of the workers who laid the stones and helped built the hospital, is the only man still alive at the time of interview on March 13, 2003.
Dr. Robin Hrasu arrived NamKham in 1935.
Dr. Gordon Stifler Seagrave arrived NamKham in 1922 November 11.
Starting from 1937 Dr. Seagrave did not involve in Church work and education any more but he put more effort on hospital work. During World War II in 1942, Dr. Gordon Seagrave, a chain-smoking missionary and humanitarian surgeon known to the Burmese who often had trouble with Anglo names pronounced “Dr. Cigarette” left NamKham to India with his nineteen nurses.
After World War II, Dr. Gordon S. Seagrave returned from India as Lt. Col. and served in hospital work. He walked back in to work in 1944. He served as chief medical officer for the Shan States of Burma with the British military government from 1945-46.
Karen rebels captured Taunggyi, Lashio, and Namkhan on August 13-31, 1949. Government troops recaptured Namkhan on September 8, 1949.
He was arrested and charged with treason by the newly independent Burmese government on August 15, 1950 . He chose to stand trial rather than be perceived as fleeing. He was sentenced in January 1951 to six years at hard labor, on charges that he wrote a letter that helped Karen rebels arrest a government commissioner, and that he gave medical help to the Karen rebels. The High Court of Burma released him on November 14, 1951.
He suffered dysentery and malaria in part from his time in jail.
Seagrave wrote six books:
Waste Basket Surgery, 1930;
Tales of a Waste Basket Surgeon, 1939/1942;
Burma Surgeon, 1943;
Adventure in Burma told in pictures, 1944;
Burma Surgeon Returns, 1946; and
My Hospital in the Hills, 1955;
and he co-authored The life of a Burma Surgeon with Chester Bowles, 1961.
During his absence his sister Dr. S. Grace Seagrave came to serve in NamKham hospital. She worked until her untimely death in 1951.
Dr. Ai Lun, the first Shan Christian medical doctor trained from Lucknow, India, resigned from government service from LaShio and came to help NamKham hospital in 1951. He was sent to study in U.S.A for one year in 1956 under Dr. Radvin at Upenn. Then he came back from U.S.A to work at NamKham Hospital in 1957. He resigned from NamKham hospital in 1960 and went for private practice.
Dr. Gordon Seagrave, after being released from jail in 1951 returned to serve in NamKham hospital until he passed away on March 28, 1965. (age 68)
He had served for 43 years at NamKham hospital. He performed more than 5000 surgeries.
The hospital was nationalized by military government in 1965.