Mother Teresa: a biography

EARLY CRITICS
No sooner had the criticism of Nirmal Hriday died down, then rum-
blings about Mother Teresa herself surfaced. These criticisms grew
throughout the decade and followed her for years. As the number of
Mother Teresa’s detractors increased, the debate about her character and
her attitudes toward such controversial topics as abortion and family plan-
ning intensified. As donations to her order increased, Mother Teresa came
under scrutiny for accepting contributions from questionable donors.
K A L I G H AT
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One of the first to question Mother Teresa’s handling of Nirmal Hriday
was a young medical student named Marcus Fernandes. Before coming to
Nirmal Hriday, Fernandes was already familiar with Mother Teresa and
her work. His sister had attended Loreto, and through her, he had learned
a great deal about the Missionaries of Charity.
As inexperienced at medicine as he was, Fernandes, nonetheless, was
unhappy with the haphazard clinical practices that he found at Nirmal
Hriday. He made several suggestions to Mother Teresa about how she
could improve the chances for patients’ recoveries. According to Fernan-
des, the biggest problem at Nirmal Hriday was not cancer, tuberculosis, or
heart ailments, but malnutrition. Fernandes suggested that giving patients
rice fortified with vitamin supplements would improve their chances of
survival. He also suggested new approaches to diagnosis along with a sep-
arate area where he could make a more thorough examination of patients.
His recommendations failed to convince Mother Teresa. His widow, Pa-
tricia Fernandes, remarked, “He could not persuade her to treat them with
vitamins. She did not want them treated; she expected people to die and
would simply say, ‘Well, she’s gone to God.’ She was not particularly in-
terested in medicine.”
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Others who visited or worked at Nirmal Hriday similarly noted Mother
Teresa’s seeming nonchalance over others’ deaths. One visitor recalled
how, when her sisters asked Mother Teresa to try to save a 16-year-old boy
from dying, she simply blessed the ailing young man and said, “Never
mind, it’s a lovely day to go to Heaven.”
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A young woman volunteer, who
had been thinking of joining the Missionaries of Charity, helped a young
woman with a heart defect enter Nirmal Hriday. Mother Teresa told her
that there was nothing more she could do, it was in God’s hands as to
whether the young woman would live or die.
Dr. Fernandes stayed at Nirmal Hriday for two years, before leaving for
London to complete his medical training. When he returned to India and
again offered his services to Mother Teresa he saw, to his dismay, that
nothing had changed at Nirmal Hriday except that some conditions had
become worse. A great deal of the money that had been donated to Nir-
mal Hriday was being wasted, and the facilities needed improvement. Fer-
nandes was particularly angered by the sight of an X-ray machine that was
now useless and rusting. When he approached Mother Teresa about it, she
told him that there was no one trained to use it. Dr. Fernandes continued
off and on to see Mother Teresa, but after her refusal to pay for his treat-
ment of a skin ailment that had been plaguing her, he severed his associ-
ation with her. He did, however, volunteer his time and services with
other charity and missionary groups in Calcutta. But, when asked, he
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never changed his assessment of Mother Teresa. To him, she was a hard
and extremely ruthless woman.
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Another vocal critic of Mother Teresa was a British doctor of ophthal-
mology, Major E. John Somerset, who was affiliated with the Calcutta
Medical College Hospital from 1939 to 1961. During the early 1950s,
when Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity were first becoming
known, Dr. Somerset was donating his time to five or six charitable homes
for the aged and sick in Calcutta. He soon began getting regular visits
from Mother Teresa, who would bring him patients she had found in need
of treatment. Many of the cases Somerset treated were children who suf-
fered from severe vitamin A deficiency to such a degree that their corneas
were melting away. Although Somerset promised Mother Teresa that he
would see as many cases as he could, he asked that she let him know be-
forehand and not come when he was seeing his regular patients. But to
Somerset’s dismay, Mother Teresa ignored his request and continued to
bring patients to him without an appointment. He came to regard her as
a nuisance and a bother.
Another volunteer, Sue Ryder, who had worked as a nurse during
World War II, also had her problems with Mother Teresa. When Ryder
came to India with her husband, she occasionally visited the slums with
Mother Teresa. She approached Mother Teresa about merging the Mis-
sionaries of Charities ventures with her own charitable foundation, but
was rebuffed. The two women had other problems with each other. Ryder
strongly suggested that the night staff at Nirmal Hriday be increased, as it
was often overnight that patients needed the most comfort and care.
However, Mother Teresa refused to consider a change in schedules: her
sisters were to return to the convent at night to say their prayers. The
matter was closed.