tration as you will note by the attached interim reply. By a "slip of the pen" I wrote Ghana to you where it should have been French West Africa. We will hope for any early report. Sincerely, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ADMINISTRATION, Washington, D.C., July 20, 1959. Hon. PHILIP A. HART, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR HART: On behalf of Mr. Saccio, I am pleased to acknowledge receipt of your communication of July 14, 1959, with which you enclose a letter from Dr. Henry A. Archambault of Providence Hospital, 2500 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit, Mich., who requests assistance in acquiring quonset huts for a hospital project in the Upper Volta region of French West Africa. Please be assured that your request for our comments on this matter will receive our prompt attention and I will write you again with reference thereto at the earliest practicable date. With assurances of my highest esteem, I remain, GUILFORD JAMESON, Deputy Director for Congressional Relations. Dr. HENRY A. ARCHAMBAULT, AUGUST 14, 1959. Detroit, Mich. DEAR DR. ARCHAMBAULT: Enclosed is a letter which has come to me from the International Cooperation Administration about the possibility of quonset huts for a hospital in the Upper Volta region of French West Africa. In addition, my office has explored every avenue we could think of here in Washington: General Services Administration, the Department of Defense, the Development Loan Fund, and the American Hospital Association. We come up with this unhappy picture. ICA provides aid only governmentto-government, and in any event it does not operate in French West Africa. GSA has no quonset huts available. The Defense Department, by law, must at present confine its donation of surplus property to that which has no commercial value. If you are willing to pay for surplus property, you could write to U.S. Army Property Disposal Detachment, APO 757, care of Postmaster, New York. They are located in Frankfurt, Germany, and you could bid on any property you were interested in. Perhaps you have already contacted Voltaic authorities or one of the American religious or voluntary agencies. If this would be a Catholic hospital you could try the Catholic Relief Services, 350 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. Another possibility which you might want to pursue is the World Health Organization, which is operating in this field. I suggest you get in touch with: Dr. F. Cambournac, Regional Director, Office for Africa, WHO, Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa. I hope one of these leads will be helpful to you. There is a bill currently in the House Government Operations Committee, H.R. 8398, which would make oversea surplus property available to medical institutions. This might really be your answer, but unfortunately it probably will not get through Congress this session. This has turned out to be a rather lengthy letter, but I have tried to be of as much help as possible. Please let me know if there is anything further I can do. Sincerely, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ADMINISTRATION, Hon. PHILIP A. HART, DEAR SENATOR HART: It is a pleasure to provide you now with the information requested in your communication of July 14 regarding the possibility of U.S. assistance to supply quonset huts to a proposed hospital project in the upper Volta region of French West Africa. It will be noted that all U.S. aid provided through ICA is administered on a government-to-government basis. Any assistance to a private group would have to be for a project specifically agreed upon and requested by the government of the recipient country. Since ICA does not presently administer aid programs in the Voltaic Republic (upper Volta) or the other member states of the French community, it would not be feasible for us to supply the quonset huts. Although ICA cannot supply them, it is possible that the local French and Voltaic authorities might be of some help. Contact with American religious and other voluntary agencies which may be working in the Voltaic Republic might also prove rewarding. If Dr. Archambault and his associates are desirous of obtaining U.S. Government surplus huts with their own resources, we would suggest that they contact the General Services Administration. We are hopeful that Dr. Archambault and his colleagues will meet with success in their efforts. With continued assurance of my highest esteem, I remain, Sincerely yours, GUILFORD JAMESON, Deputy Director for Congressional Relations. PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL, Detroit, Mich., August 20, 1959. Senator PHILIP A. HART, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR HART: Thank you for Dr. Archambault and our organization for all the trouble you have taken to obtain information for him about the quonset huts. I am forwarding the letter to him today. Dr. Archambault left from New York on August the 3d for Jirapa, Ghana, West Africa. We have formed a group here which we call the Providence Association for African Missions. We hope to be able to help him in some small way in his good and generous work and in the tremendous sacrifice which he is making. I feel sure that the leads will be of some use to him. Thank you again. Very truly yours, Mrs. ALICE RALSTON, Chairman, Providence Association for African Missions. P.S. Our group is strictly interested in the medical side of missionary work. Senator GRUENING. Is there anyone else here who wishes to testify on S. 2732? We have a list of witnesses, but in order to keep in sequence, we would be very glad to have those who will testify specifically on this. Is Miss Helen Ann Byerlein, of Providence Hospital, here? Would you be kind enough to come forward, please? STATEMENT OF HELEN ANN BYERLEIN, REGISTERED NURSE, PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL, DETROIT, MICH. Miss BYERLEIN. Senator Gruening, my name is Helen Ann Byerlein. I am a registered nurse in the State of Michigan and the State of California. I reside in Detroit where I work in a doctor's office there. Approximately a year ago, a group of 15 people from Providence Hospital who had formerly been associated with Dr. Archambault decided to try and help him financially in improving facilities in the area of Ghana called the Northern Territories, where he has been. So through the use of card parties and dances and social activities, we have been able to raise funds totaling $2,000. Thanks to Senator Hart's interest in our project and his notifying us, I was delegated by my friends at Providence Hospital to come here to relate what I know of Dr. Archambault's work in Africa, to show what this one dedicated man has accomplished against untold odds and to indicate what he needs to help the people of that continent. I first met Henry Archambault in 1946, at which time I was in training as a student nurse at Providence Hospital and Dr. Archambault was an instructor and a member of the staff of the hospital. I consider Dr. Archambault a man dedicated to God, his country, and his fellow man, motivated to do for others the things he was trained to do as a doctor of medicine and a general surgeon. Dr. Archambault was born in Barre, Vt., on October 31, 1911. He was graduated from Creighton University Medical School in Omaha, Nebr., and began his residency at Providence Hospital in 1939. He was a resident in surgery and pathology for 5 years. His start in private practice was delayed, because of tuberculosis, one kidney having been removed because of TB, for 3 years. Dr. Archambault received his fellowship in the American College of Surgeons in 1953. Because of his interest in the work being done by the White Fathers in Africa, Dr. Archambault left his private practice in Detroit and proceeded to Ghana in August 1954. Ghana at that time was under the protection of the British Commonwealth, and Dr. Archambault received a salary of $3,500 per year. When Ghana became independent he no longer received remuneration from Britain, and the only payment he receives at this time is the maximum of 5 pounds per surgical case sent him by the Government of Ghana. His reputation Senator GRUENING. May I interrupt you at this point? Miss BYERLEIN. Yes. Senator GRUENING. Why is his salary discontinued. Does not the Government of Ghana consider it worth paying? Miss BYERLEIN. The Government of Ghana evidently does not have the funds to pay it. Senator GRUENING. Well, it was paid by the British and it was $3,500 a year, is that correct? Miss BYERLEIN. Yes. Senator GRUENING. And you say the Government of Ghana does not feel it can pay that amount? Miss BYERLEIN. Well, I really do not know why the Government of Ghana is not paying the doctor. All I know is that they do set a maximum fee of 5 pounds per surgical case. Senator GRUENING. In other words, they are paying him for individual treatment? Miss BYERLEIN. Yes. These are patients which the Government would specifically send him; natives of the northern territories in Ghana do not pay, except in the exchange of eggs or guinea hens. Senator GRUENING. Well, the question that arises in my mind at this point is whether we should not reasonably expect some participation on the part of the Government that receives services that are, obviously, beneficial. If under a colonial system the British Government was willing to pay what is a very modest salary, now this country has sought and received its independence, and apparently its Government does not think these services are worth paying for. Now, that to me is a rather distressing situation. I think that when all the giving comes from one side, I think it is less appreciated than when there is a certain amount of participation by the local government. I would like to suggest that we communicate with our State Department and with the Ghana Embassy, and find out exactly what the situation is; why is the Government of Ghana not willing to pay this relatively small amount to continue these obviously desirable medical services, especially as we have under consideration legislation here which is designed to help this country and its health problems by transferring donable property to Ghana. Please continue. I am sorry to interrupt. Miss BYERLEIN. Yes. His reputation as an excellent surgeon has led people from the capital, Accra, to travel as far as the northern territories to avail themselves of his services. In his first year in Ghana, Dr. Archambault performed some 750 herniorrhaphies, and this does not include those cases that are considered to be major surgical cases. When Dr. Archambault first arrived in the northern territories of Ghana, the procedure for sterilizing instruments was to boil them and then hang them on the line to be disinfected by the sun after they had dried. This, of course, delayed emergency surgery and increased the hazards of infection in the patient. The mission and hospital in the northern territories now has a generator which, though medieval in comparison to our standards, is nonetheless an improvement over the old method. Drug supplies are skimpy and inadequate. The natives have an overwhelming number of sarcomas of all types, although there is seldom a case of carcinoma in this area. Prior to Dr. Archambault's arrival in Ghana, the White Sisters had trained three or four girls as nurses and midwives. Dr. Archambault trained five young men to work as orderlies and set up the training of student nurses in a 3-year course. There are approximately 50 students in training, and they are paid three or four pounds per month by the Government of Ghana. Registered nurses are paid 15 pounds per month, and prior to June 1959, all graduate nurses took a "state board" exam sent from England. The cost for X-rays is five shillings. Mental illnesses, thought by the natives to be a contagious disease and the work of evil spirits, is caused by African sleeping sickness and encephalitis, usually. About one-third of the mental illness is caused by African sleeping sickness. The incidence of mental illness is not as high as in our civilization, and the treatment is very medieval. To prevent the mentally ill from injuring others, the natives use shackles made of iron on the patient's wrists and ankles or, if these shackles are not available, they take a large tree trunk and wedge the person's ankle into it and make the tree trunk large enough so that the patient cannot get through the compound into other villagers' sleeping quarters. Because of severe malnutrition, many of the Africans in this area Miss BYERLEIN. It is yaws, where the jaws, you know, cave in. Miss BYERLEIN. I believe so, yes. The Samnolium damnesium fly causes elephantiasis over there, and out of the total population in West Africa there is more blindness from this disease than there is in the combined population of the United States and England. And DDT is the only control; and that is in demand over there. The mortality rate in infants is exceedingly high because of the poor diet of the mothers. Dr. Archambault told me when I saw him last year that the tribal bonesetters immobilize fractures with splints made out of elephant grass and bark. This in itself would be an adequate method of immobilization, except they then wet this elephant grass and when it dries it shrinks, causing gangrene of the affected limb. Because of the untiring efforts of this one man, the people of Ghana have improved markedly. This would be enough for other men, but not for Dr. Archambault. He feels an urgent need now to care for the sick in French Equatorial Africa, which is the area on the other side of the Volta River. I am certain that this bill would benefit Dr. Archambault in the work that he is doing as an American citizen, sponsored by a group of American people at Providence Hospital. It would benefit all medical missionaries, you might say. I know of some in San Salvador and Ecuador who would find this extremely beneficial in aiding the people. They are desperately in need of hematinics, or blood-building drugs, primarily. There is no heart disease or no need for tranquilizers as we need in this country. And Dr. Archambault expressed many times that malnutrition is really the primary illness over there. The surgery that he has done; I saw some pictures of it last year when Dr. Archambault was in Detroit, and you would be amazed at the disfigurement that the people were going around with, with hernias primarily; and Dr. Archambault has been able to cure them. Senator GRUENING. Has Dr. Archambault's work been reported in any of the medical journals? Miss BYERLEIN. The doctor has written a paper on hernias in that area, and it is supposed to be presented to one of the American Colleges of Surgeons. Senator GRUENING. Has it been published? Miss BYERLEIN. No. Senator GRUENING. Is it likely to be in the near future? Miss BYERLEIN. I think so, yes, Senator. Senator GRUENING. I think it would be very useful if a copy could be secured for the committee file. Miss BYERLEIN. I would be glad to see if I could obtain it. Senator GRUENING. And any other writings that he has on his medical experiences. |