O Sweet Star of Bethlehem

DECEMBER is that time of the year when our hearts are made joyous by the warmth and light of Christmas, the feast of the birth of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus was born in a small town in Palestine called Bethlehem, which in Aramaic means: House of Bread. Mary and Joseph, the Gospels relate, were on their way to Jerusalem when Mary’s labour pains started, and they were forced to stop in Bethlehem. As they couldn’t afford a room in a hostel, the poverty-stricken couple were forced to repair in a grotto at the outskirts of the town. There, in the presence of an ox and a donkey, Mary gave birth to the heavenly child.

The manger, the shepherds, the crèche, the angels singing in choir, constitute the backdrop of the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation, the momentous event in which the Divine swoops down to conquer a wayward humanity and lead it back to its heavenly home.

In the year 326 the emperor Constantine the Great ordered that a church be built on the site of that grotto. The building was renovated and extended in 540 by emperor Justinian. That monument, considered the oldest church in the world, is the current Church of the Nativity.

Sister Lucia

Not far from this shrine is a very peculiar building called Caritas Baby Hospital, the only paediatric facility in the whole West Bank region which, on account of its history, mission and symbolic value, incarnates the essence of Christmas.

“Yes, our hospital is, in a sense, a living representation of the feast of Christmas,” says Sister Lucia Corradin, who directs the ward for premature births in the facility.

“In our hospital Jesus is born every day! When I first came to work at the hospital I was very enthusiastic about being able to work in the very city where Jesus was born. In the first months I often went to the Church of the Nativity. And when I spent my first Christmas in Bethlehem I was filled with joyous anticipation. However, I gradually came to realise that at the hospital I was working in Jesus is born every day. Actually more than once every day; He is born again, for example, every time we receive a sick child. The suffering of that child, and that of its mother and relatives, is a live repetition of Jesus’ birth 2000 years ago. I obviously still continue to visit the Church of the Nativity, but I have also become aware that every minute of my life spent at the paediatric hospital of Bethlehem allows me to participate in the mystery of the Incarnation ever anew.”

Work of the Spirit

Sister Lucia is a nun of the Congregation of the Suore Francescane Elisabettine, founded by Blessed Elisabetta Vendramini, a woman who spent most of her life caring for the sick and the destitute in Padua, Italy. In 1828 Elisabetta Vendramini founded this congregation, which now has missions in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. These nuns have founded schools, kindergardens, orphanages, homes for the elderly, hospitals, etc.

Caritas Baby Hospital in Bethlehem is spiritually directed by six of these nuns, five from Italy and one from Ecuador.

“This hospital is an extraordinary work of the Spirit,” says Sister Lucia. “Unfortunately, the current meltdown between Jews and Arabs has made our work even harder that before. Yet all these difficulties have only rendered our work all the more vital for these destitute people.”

Sister Lucia is a youthful woman in her 30s. Her intense grey-blue eyes reveal great enthusiasm for her mission and work.

How did the hospital originate?

Caritas Baby Hospital was founded by a Swiss priest, Fr. Ernst Schnydrig. In December 1952 he had come to Bethlehem on a pilgrimage with a group of Swiss faithful. On Christmas Eve he was making his way towards the Church of the Nativity while the air was filled with the merry sound of church bells, when he came across a scene that left an indelible mark on his soul. Behind a tent for refugees he saw a young man whose face was torn by grief. The man was digging a grave in the mud. Father Ernst drew closer and saw that the man was burying his own child, who had died of cold and starvation. The tragedy unfolding before his eyes was in the starkest contrast imaginable to the festive atmosphere of that night. Father Ernst could not believe that so much suffering was still lingering in the very place where Jesus, the Lord of compassion, was born. As he watched the heart-wrenching scene Father Ernst felt called to do everything in his power to stop similar tragedies from taking place again.

In the following days he discussed matters with his fellow pilgrims, and began to lay down a project for a hospital in the area. He first rented two rooms, and then went out among the villages in search of sick children. He soon found 14, and took them with him to the makeshift hospital. He paid a doctor to look after them. This was the first bud of the future hospital. Those two rooms later became four, then ten, then fifteen and, in 1978, the construction and inauguration of a new building took place, called Caritas Baby Hospital.

Why this name?

Baby Hospital because it’s reserved for children. Our hospital offers generalised paediatric services, but refers more complicated cases to specialised facilities. The word ‘caritas’ is misleading. We are not connected to Caritas Internationalis the international Catholic aid agency for the poor. The word ‘caritas’ is to be taken in its original etymological meaning, that is, ‘charity’ in its original sense of love or compassion. It means that the Baby Hospital was born out of an act of pure love for children, and that we are funded exclusively by people’s charity.

Your hospital therefore is not funded by any national state or association?

Exactly. We do not receive any funds from either the Palestinian Authority or the State of Israel. We are not receiving any help from any international humanitarian association. Caritas Baby Hospital is maintained exclusively by people’s ‘charity’.

Once he returned home, our founder set up an association called “Kinderhilfe Bethlehem” (Children’s Relief Bethlehem), based in Lucerne, Switzerland. The hospital is directed economically by this association, which is responsible for collecting funds from private citizens. This association is gradually spreading, and now has branches in Germany, Austria and Italy. People help us because they know that this is the best way to worship the Jesus Child.

How is the hospital organised?

The hospital building is a nice modern circular construction. It is divided into two paediatric wards and a neonatal one. The facility has a capacity of 82 beds. Thirty of these beds are reserved for mothers with children affected by severe health problems, and thus needing the presence of their mothers. Our founder soon realised that it was not enough to assist the children; it was also necessary to educate their mothers as well so that the work could be continued at home once they left the hospital. In Palestine mothers are often young girls under 18, and most have absolutely no clue as to how to take care of their children.

How many children do you treat a year?

On average we accept about 3,500 children a year, but we also cure about 30,000 children in our outpatient clinic. In the area of Bethlehem and Hebron there are about 100,000 children under the age of 4, and there are over 500,000 children in Palestine as a whole. In Palestine health care is not guaranteed by the state. The Palestinian Authority has legislation recognising the right to health, but lack of funds means that this right is only there on paper. This is what make Caritas Baby Hospital so precious. We are the only paediatric institution in the West Bank and Gaza strip. This slogan by our founder is our inspiration and goal: We help the poor as best we can, irrespective of race or religion.

Our hospital is not for Palestinian children, or Jewish children, nor is it for Muslim, Christian or Jewish children, it is for any child who needs help, just like Jesus needed help on that night over 2000 years ago.

Besides you nuns who else works in the hospital?

Our staff comprises 200 people in all, these include doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians, attendants, cleaners, cooks etc. Most are Arabs from surrounding districts, both Muslim and Christian. We are also helped by a team of Swiss and German specialists in paediatrics.

How is the hospital seen by the local population?

We are a foreign, but very effective institution, and the people here know just how useful we are for them. So we have earned the respect of both the authorities and the people.

Unfortunately, however, the disastrous political situation has created a multitude of obstacles to our work. People have great difficulty moving. Outsiders believe that the Wall dividing Jewish areas from the Arab ones is the only obstacle to movement, but in actual fact obstacles are everywhere – artificial hills, checkpoints, army watchtowers, electric fences, etc. stud the territory, and create a complex web of detours that make travelling extremely cumbersome.

This more or less paralyses the economy, thus driving the population into even greater misery and despair. Unemployment is rife, and people have practically given up all hope. Those who can have left the country, while those who remain live in quiet desperation. Hygiene is lacking, and some villages are without water and electricity. Naturally, children and the elderly are bearing the brunt of these hardships. Once, people knew that hospitals were at hand, now with all these obstacles, many children arrive at the hospital too late.

We ourselves are greatly hampered by all these drawbacks. We often have to transfer our young patients to more specialised clinics, but the movements are all very complicated, and red tape does the rest. In the most serious cases the ambulance takes the child up to a check point from where it is transferred to an Israeli ambulance, which then takes it to a specialised facility in Israel. But all this takes time, and often the child arrives dead. Last year we lost 22 children in this way.

Has the war adversely affected the hospital itself?

The war has galvanised the world’s attention on the actual violence taking place, so few people are aware of our efforts and those of other worthy initiatives in the region. This means that we are receiving less funds than before, and we are thereby compelled to make ever greater sacrifices, and even to cut back on some initiatives. For example, we had to reduce finding for the Social Department, whose purpose is to provide medication and health care to those requiring medical assistance, but do not need to be hospitalised. This Department also offers mother’s consultation on child care, hygiene and nutrition, and even some financial help. But now lack of funds means that we will have to close this Department, and we are trying to find other facilities that will pitch in before we have to close it for good.

We are in need of funding, but even of material items like pyjamas, children’s socks and underwear, diaper rash creams, medicines, etc. Our slogan is: Do not forget Bethlehem’s children!

QUICK FACTS ABOUT BETHLEHEM 

•      Population 29,000; primarily Arab Christians and Muslims. 

       It is located five miles southwest of Jerusalem. 

•      ‘Bethlehem’ is Hebrew and Aramaic meaning ‘House Of Bread’. 

       Christians regard it as the birthplace of Jesus. 

•       The Church of the Nativity, completed by Constantine the Great in 333, stands in the centre of Bethlehem over a grotto or cave called the Holy Crypt, which according to Christian tradition is the place where Jesus was born. This is perhaps the oldest existing Christian church in the world.

         In 1950, following the first Arab-Israeli war (1948 – 49), it was annexed by Jordan. After the Six-Day War (1967), it became part  of the West Bank territory under Israeli administration. Under an agreement reached in 1995, Israel ceded rule of the town to a Palestinian Authority. 

       The city is an important pilgrim and tourist center. It is also an important agricultural and trade center.

•       Bethlehem is home to Bethlehem University, a Roman Catholic institution which was founded (in 1973) under the direction of the Vatican and the De La Salle Christian Brothers. The school has 2,800 students and is open to people of all faiths.