Ranchi's new Catholic medical college and hospital

The Constant Lievens Academy of Health Sciences and Hospital (CLAHS) at Mandar, near Ranchi, the capital of the northern Indian state of ‎Jharkhand, is destined to be a medical college and hospital in the heartland of a far-flung tribal region where healthcare for the vast number of its poor and marginalized is a luxury.  The project of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), named after a pioneering Belgian Jesuit missionary in Ranchi, was inaugurated at a ceremony on Nov. 7, 2015, in the presence of CBCI officials, where Jharkhand State chief minister, Raghubar Das was the chief guest.  The new venture is envisioned in the pattern of the CBCI’s prestigious St. John’s Medical College in Bangalore.  To know more about the Constant Lievens Academy of Health Sciences and Hospital, we talked to Auxiliary Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas of Ranchi, the Chairman of the Executive Committee CBCI Society for Medical Education – North India.  He first explained how the whole idea of CBCI’s medical college and hospital in north India came about.

Listen: