World Day of the Sick 2025
February 10, 2025
Safe and affordable housing a human right
February 13, 2025
Mater is building ties with a Catholic hospital serving some of the most impoverished communities in Pakistan.
The St Elizabeth Hospital in Hyderabad is one of just six Catholic hospitals in the largely Muslim nation, and specialises in maternity care, palliative care and the provision of free outreach medical services in rural areas.
Mater health executives were honoured to welcome two special guests from St Elizabeth’s on a fact-finding tour of Mater Mothers’ Hospital and Mater Private Hospital Brisbane: hospital board chair Fr Robert McCulloch, who spent 34 years in Pakistan as a Columbans’ missionary; and hospital administrator Eric Siraj.
The pair visited Mater as part of a four-week tour of Australian medical facilities, with the aim of finding new ways to improve healthcare in Pakistan.
“We do not have the resources that Australian hospitals have, but there is much that we can learn from hospitals like Mater Mothers’,” Fr McCulloch said.
“We cannot spend millions of dollars, but there are improvements that we can try with tens of thousands.
“Thanks to the overseas funding we receive, including from Australia, and our committed management team, St Elizabeth’s is now recognised as the only flourishing Catholic hospital in Pakistan.”
Mater Director of Clinical Governance Dr Chris Foley joined the board of St Elizabeth’s a year ago and accompanied Fr McCulloch and Mr Siraj on their tour of Mater Private Hospital Brisbane and the Mater Mothers’ birth suites and Neonatal Critical Care Unit.
Funding from Catholic Mission has been crucial to the success of St Elizabeth’s, allowing the hospital to build a new orthopaedic operating theatre and expand its nurse training facilities.
Mr Siraj said his previous visit to Australia led to the development of St Elizabeth’s first Central Sterile Services Department (CSSD) and improvements in infection control.
“Compared to our hospital the Mater is very large, very developed and very advanced,” Mr Siraj said.
“But in Australian hospitals I see things we can put into our hospital, or something near to it.
“Everyone has been very helpful and welcoming.”
As well as providing vital medical care to people of all faiths, Mr Siraj said St Elizabeth’s was helping to reduce discrimination against the Christian community in Pakistan.
“Each year we provide free care to 50,000 people living in the poorest rural areas, most of whom are Muslim,” Mr Siraj said.
“They see the compassion of the Church for themselves and that is the way we decrease discrimination and fight prejudice against Christians.”
Read more about Catholic Mission’s support for St Elizabeth’s here.
