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Filipino paediatrician Fe del Mundo opened the Philippines' first children's hospital in Quezon City in 1957, paying for it by selling her house and taking out a large loan. She also took child healthcare out to the villages, designing a bamboo incubator for places without electricity.

Fe del Mundo

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The story behind the card

Born in Manila in 1911, del Mundo qualified as a doctor at the University of the Philippines in 1933 and trained further in children's medicine at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital. She came home in 1941, just before the Japanese occupation, and cared for children held in the Santo Tomas internment camp, where she became known as “the Angel of Santo Tomas”. Her Children's Medical Center opened in 1957. She sent teams into the countryside to teach breastfeeding and child care, pressed for village midwives to be brought into the health service, and wrote a Textbook of Pediatrics long used in Philippine medical schools. In 1980 she became the first woman named a National Scientist of the Philippines. She died in 2011, aged 99.

Türkçe oku
Filipinli çocuk doktoru Fe del Mundo, 1957'de Quezon City'de ülkenin ilk çocuk hastanesini açtı; parasını evini satarak ve büyük bir kredi çekerek buldu. Çocuk sağlığı hizmetini köylere de taşıdı, elektriği olmayan yerler için bambudan bir kuvöz tasarladı.

1911'de Manila'da doğan del Mundo, 1933'te Filipinler Üniversitesi'nden hekim olarak mezun oldu; ardından Harvard Tıp Fakültesi'nde ve Boston Çocuk Hastanesi'nde çocuk hastalıkları üzerine eğitim aldı. 1941'de, Japon işgalinden hemen önce ülkesine döndü ve Santo Tomas sivil esir kampında tutulan çocuklara baktı; bu yüzden “Santo Tomas'ın meleği” diye anıldı. Kurduğu Children's Medical Center 1957'de açıldı. Kırsal bölgelere emzirmeyi ve çocuk bakımını öğreten ekipler gönderdi, köy ebelerinin sağlık hizmetine katılması için uğraştı. Yazdığı Textbook of Pediatrics uzun yıllar Filipin tıp fakültelerinde okutuldu. 1980'de Filipinler'de Ulusal Bilim İnsanı unvanı verilen ilk kadın oldu. 2011'de 99 yaşında öldü.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Fe del Mundo
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