Baptist Health System, South Korean hospital reaffirm 15-year partnership

A 15-year partnership between Baptist Health System (BHS) in Birmingham and a South Korean hospital received a shot in the arm recently, reviving the organizations’ relationship.
   
In June, Gary Fisher, BHS director of church/faith relations, and Wayne Pate, chairman of the BHS board of trustees, traveled to Pusan, South Korea, to formally reaffirm BHS’ commitment to its partnership with Wallace Memorial Baptist Hospital (WMBH).
   
“I am pleased that Baptist Health System has this partnership,” Pate said. “This is part of our global ministry, and we can have an impact all around the world.”
   
The partnership initially began through the encouragement of Charlie Sands, who had served as the administrator for liaison affairs at WMBH through the Foreign Mission Board (now the International Mission Board).
   
He wrote a memo in 1990 in which the seeds of a formal partnership between BHS and WMBH were planted. The idea was intriguing to both parties, especially in the area of clinical research.
   
Correspondence between BHS and WMBH resulted in a trip by then-BHS president Emmett Johnson to Pusan early in 1991. As a result, a formal agreement was signed and an affiliation began.
   
The agreement self-renewed every three years, unless one party notified the other that it wanted to end the relationship. 
   
Its purpose was to exchange ideas and thoughts concerning the delivery of health care, technology, health care administration and any other subject pertinent to faith-based hospitals. It also encouraged visits by personnel between the organizations.
   
The first such personnel exchange took place in late April and early May of 1991, when Betty Norris, a BHS clinical nurse specialist, traveled to Pusan to train intensive care nurses at WMBH.
   
During the next several years, numerous such exchanges of personnel and information took place.
   
For the past three years, however, as BHS restructured its system, activity in the partnership waned on both sides.
   
But Sands stepped in and encouraged Dr. Dong-Youl Rhee, the new president and CEO of WMBH, to travel to Birmingham in the fall of 2005 for a series of visits to various hospitals, as well as to BHS’ corporate office.
   
During this visit, Rhee broached the subject of reaffirming the affiliation agreement with BHS officials.
   
That led to Pate and Fisher’s visit to Pusan.
   
Fisher said both organizations are now exploring ways to help each other through specific projects, as well as exchanging ideas and personnel. 
   
He noted that WMBH excels in seeing the hospital as a missions field, where chaplains have the opportunity to witness and win patients to Christ. In one year, more than 600 people made a profession of faith and several churches were started because of the hospital, Fisher said.
   
“They can help us regain our sense of mission and ministry within the hospital,” he said. “They’ll help us get a grasp on how we can be better ministers at the bedside.”
   
Pate explained that the sense of ministry is so strong at WMBH that employees can give to a ministry fund. This helps fund medical missions trips within South Korea and to surrounding countries.
   
“I forsee that we could have teams go and work with them (on the trips),” Pate said, noting the trips would be much the same as the medical missions trips in which some BHS personnel already participate.
   
He said BHS also plans to send some of its medical equipment and supplies to WMBH. “Our people can see that it is having a part in something good for God’s Kingdom on this earth,” Pate said. (BHS, TAB)