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HARRIET BENSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Returning Hope and Healing to Lalitpur
Harriet Benson Memorial Hospital (HBMH) began in Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh, as a mission station in 1890, and by 1934 a hospital offering regular medical work was in place. People in the surrounding area are very familiar with the hospital because many of them were born there!
Over the last few years, difficulty in recruiting and retaining doctors has severely limited the services offered, and therefore the income. Yet the nurses and support staff have faithfully continued to work, often with no pay. In 2025, the hospital’s outpatient department was closed for two months, and the inpatient department was closed for eight months. But also in 2025, a new general medicine physician, Dr. Sumeir, joined their team of seven nurses and has opened up new possibilities for more hospital services.
In India, only OB/GYNs are allowed to deliver babies, so the hospital staff have brought in a local consultant almost daily to provide this key service. Likewise, HBMH has an ophthalmology department but no specialist, so a visiting ophthalmologist has been coming in to operate during their eye camps twice a month.
The Palliative Care program at Harriet Benson is the oldest in EHA, and their small teams care for about 170 patients each month! The hospital also runs a Disability and Rehabilitation program in nearby communities, and this service is essential for many. The strength of these two programs is significant.
The immediate goals for the team at HBMH are to re-establish reliable inpatient services, increase outpatient and inpatient traffic, strengthen referral networks, and rebuild the hospital’s reputation as a trusted healthcare provider.
Harriet Benson Memorial Hospital remains committed to its mission of bringing hope, healing, and love to the people of Lalitpur. By God’s grace and through partners like you, we believe HBMH can once again become a thriving center of excellence that transforms lives and communities through compassionate healthcare.
Passing in Peace:
Palliative Care Team Enables a Good Death
Singh was a 60-year-old farmer in excruciating pain. Like many men in his community, Singh had spent decades chewing tobacco and smoking bidis. What began as a habit eventually led to a devastating illness—advanced oral cancer.
For months, he traveled to clinics and hospitals, seeking help for his condition. Eventually he was told he was not a candidate for surgery, and he retreated to his home, his money gone.
As the cancer progressed, Singh’s suffering became unimaginable. A large wound developed in his mouth. Pain made eating and speaking nearly impossible. The wound became infected, and maggots appeared. His family, already emotionally exhausted, did not know how to care for him.
It was at this critical stage that someone recommended Harriet Benson Memorial Hospital. When Singh arrived, he was immediately received by Dr. Sumeir. She saw a man who deserved comfort, dignity, and compassionate care. The team cleaned his wound, removed the maggots, and addressed his immediate suffering.
That moment changed everything. The Palliative Care nurses provided regular wound care and managed his pain at home so that he could rest comfortably and communicate with his family. In addition, the counselors and nurses spent hours listening to the family’s concerns, explaining the disease process, teaching caregiving skills, and helping the family prepare for the future.
They transformed fear into understanding and confusion into confidence.
With the family’s permission, members of their team also prayed with them during a time of deep uncertainty. The family later described these moments as a source of peace and strength when they needed it most.
Because of this comprehensive care, Singh’s final days were not defined by pain, fear, or isolation. They were defined by comfort. He was able to spend meaningful time with his loved ones. His family learned how to care for him with confidence and compassion. Difficult conversations were approached with honesty and support. And when the time came, Singh passed away peacefully, surrounded by those who loved him.
Following his death, our team continued to walk alongside the family through bereavement visits and emotional support.
Compassionate, Caring Childbirth:
One Young Mom Comes to Harriet Benson for Help
At Harriet Benson, every expectant mother is welcomed with dignity, compassion, and professionalism. Rani, a first-time mother, had not received care at HBMH during her pregnancy. But when she arrived in labor at 37 weeks pregnant, she was promptly assessed and supported by our skilled healthcare professionals. Through the coordinated efforts of their visiting OB/GYN, their general physician, and their nursing teams, she received comprehensive care and close monitoring throughout her labor. Everyone was thankful when Rani safely delivered a healthy baby girl through a normal delivery.
What began as an unexpected hospital visit ended in a joyful and memorable experience for the family. Today, both mother and daughter are healthy, thriving, and enjoying this precious new chapter of life together.
This successful outcome reflects the good maternity care provided at Harriet. The doctors, nurses, and support staff work tirelessly to ensure that every mother receives safe, respectful, and evidence-based care, regardless of her circumstances. Such dedication continues to earn the trust, appreciation, and recognition of the many patients and families HBMH serves.
Areas of Focus to Renew Hope
• Recruitment and retention of qualified healthcare professionals
• Increased patient trust and use of medical services
• Strength and encouragement for staff serving in challenging circumstances
• Financial provision for hospital sustainability
Champa Christian Hospital
Established 100 years ago, Champa Christian Hospital serves the poor and marginalized communities of the Janjgir-Champa District. Due to the unavailability of medical professionals over the last three years, the hospital has seen a significant decline in patient healthcare services, and their subsequent financial struggles have nearly brought them to closure.
However, with the addition of an OB/GYN doctor, a radiologist, and a senior administrator at Champa, steps are being taken to gradually improve the situation and work toward rebuilding the broken bond between the hospital and the community. They are focused on restoring patient confidence through compassionate, affordable, and dependable care.
Over the next few years, the team at Champa aims to rebuild the hospital around core secondary-care services that address the greatest needs of their community. Particular emphasis will be placed on maternal and child health, emergency care, diagnostics, radiology, palliative care, and affordable access to advanced investigations. They also intend to strengthen community outreach programs so that healthcare reaches vulnerable populations before illness becomes advanced and costly.
Champa’s long-term vision is not simply to increase patient numbers, but to ensure that quality healthcare remains accessible regardless of a patient’s financial circumstances. They want to build a hospital where clinical excellence, financial stewardship, and compassionate service work together so that no person is denied timely diagnosis or treatment because of poverty.
Lakhnadon Christian Hospital
For more than a century, Lakhnadon Christian Hospital has stood as a place of healing, compassion, and hope for the people of rural Madhya Pradesh. Over the decades, the hospital became a trusted center for surgery, maternal and child health, emergency care, and general medicine for thousands of people from Seoni district and surrounding rural and tribal areas. For many families, this hospital has not simply been a healthcare institution. It has been part of their lives for generations.
However, the years surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic brought the hospital to one of the most difficult periods in its history.
Due to the unavailability of doctors and the challenges created during that period, Lakhnadon Christian Hospital had to shut down. Services slowly restarted in 2022, but the situation remained extremely fragile. There were very few patients. There was almost no income. Most heartbreaking of all, many staff members continued serving despite not receiving regular salaries for nearly three years. Yet they stayed because they believed the hospital still had a purpose in this community. Their faithfulness during the darkest period became the foundation on which revival could begin.
A major turning point came in 2025 with the joining of a general surgeon and a junior doctor. With renewed clinical leadership, surgical services slowly restarted. Emergency care became more active. Critically ill patients who would once have been referred immediately to distant centers began receiving treatment locally.
Around the same time, another major encouragement came through support from the Azim Premji Foundation, which funded a long-standing need: the repair and renovation of the inpatient wards. For years, the roofs of the wards leaked heavily during the rainy season, making patient care extremely difficult and discouraging admissions. The renovation work is currently in progress at Lakhnadon and has brought renewed confidence to both patients and staff. Today, the hospital is witnessing something we had almost lost hope of seeing again: the trust of the people returning. Patients are slowly coming back. Stories of lives saved through emergency surgery, diabetic ketoacidosis management, burn care, maternal care, and neonatal survival are spreading through surrounding villages.
The hospital leadership now sees a real opportunity to restore Lakhnadon Christian Hospital into a strong rural healthcare center once again. However, significant challenges remain, and this is where partnership and support become vital.
Their vision is to rebuild Lakhnadon Christian Hospital into a sustainable, compassionate, and accessible rural healthcare center that provides affordable quality care to underserved communities while upholding dignity, integrity, and Christian values. They aim to become a trusted referral center for surrounding rural populations by strengthening essential medical and surgical services that are currently lacking in the region.
Prem Jyoti Community Hospital
EHA’s Prem Jyoti Community Hospital (PJCH) was started as a community health program to care for the marginalized Malto tribal hill people of northeast Jharkhand.
This people group struggled with high infant and maternal mortality rates, low literacy, and severe poverty. Their population dropped from one million in 1947 to one hundred thousand by 1997. Witnessing this drop, EHA, along with the Evangelical Fellowship of India Commission on Relief (EFICOR) and the Friends Missionary Prayer Band (FMPB), opened a community health program with just two doctors, a lab tech, and two lay people. Twenty-nine years later, PJCH is a 30-bed hospital with 45 staff members.
From 1997 when the clinic opened to 2016, the infant mortality rate dropped from 250/1000 births to 100/1000. And the maternal mortality rate decreased from 46/1000 to 6/1000. The Malto villages now struggle less with diseases like malaria, diarrhea, TB, and a parasite disease called Kala-azar.
Since the villagers are spread out in the hills with few means of transportation, PJCH operates 72 mobile clinics each year covering 48 different villages. They have trained community health volunteers to give basic care and evaluate patients who need to be brought in for treatment at PJCH.
Since their forced closure during COVID-19, Prem Jyoti has struggled financially. It has been difficult for them to hire enough staff to draw in the patients who need medical care in the area.
Prem Sewa Hospital
EHA’s Prem Sewa Hospital was founded in 1966 by the Central India Christian Mission. They began as a small clinic with 12 beds, but today they have 35 beds and a staff of 80, including 7 doctors, 24 nurses, and 7 paramedical staff.
In the course of a year, their outpatient department serves 45,000 patients, and approximately 950 are admitted to the inpatient department. Their OB/GYN department is kept busy delivering 1,200 babies each year.
Many of the hospital buildings are quite old and in need of renovation or replacement. The roof of their outpatient department is falling in, so that needs to be fixed as soon as possible. Their equipment is also outdated, making diagnosis and medical care more difficult. They hope to add a new operating room, more staff housing, and solar-power panels to help with their intermittent electrical supply.
