One of the iconic landmarks incinerated when a fire hit Davao City’s central business district in 1964 was Brokenshire Memorial Hospital (formerly Davao Mission Hospital), then forty-five years old. Aside from daily newspaper accounts, very little is reported about the pulsating developments obtained inside the US-based United Church Board for World Ministries (UCBWM), a Protestant society handling the management and operation of the infirmary.
Four days after the fire, Paul R. Gregory, the ministry’s Pacific Area secretary, immediately filed a report to the United States, an account (‘Davao Fire—Brokenshire Memorial’) that was later carried by ‘The Christian Sun,’ the sect’s publication; it was dated March 3, 1964.
Gregory, admitting there was a dearth of details about the incident, wrote: “The main building of the hospital was completely destroyed and with it the frame building currently used for some of the Nursing School classes. Most of the equipment has been lost, but there appear to have been no casualty.”
The reports of casualties, however, differed from that which were accounted by those who were at the fire scene. Accordingly, two unconfirmed deaths were traced to a patient who had a heart attack and another who was on the operating table when the fire struck.
But Emma Noreen, the hospital’s chief nurse who sent via cablegram a brief of the incident, reported that no one was injured or killed. For his part, the Manila field representative of the ministry accused the Manila newspaper reports as “inaccurate.”
Gregory continues: “Fortunately, the dormitory of the Nursing School is intact (and with it, the library, presumably). The students have been moved to the church (the implication is t that the church escaped damage despite the fact that the fire must have swept much of downtown Davao); and the dormitory is serving as an emergency hospital.” He also wrote that patients were evacuated across Davao River while others were transferred to the Davao General Hospital (where the Institute of Psychiatry & Behavioral Medicine (IPBM) now stands).
Notwithstanding the tragedy, Noreen remained optimistic in her account, declaring that the nursing school would be opening soon in affiliation with the public hospital, and the reopening of the institute was to start in March with $45,000 in ministry funding for its operation.
Gregory wrote that as soon as the first cable regarding the incident was received on February 10, 1964, the Division of World Service (DWS) promptly released US$2,000 “for the emergency needs in Davao,” sent through Dr. Frei, the Pacific Area secretary in Manila. He also declared that part of the reconstruction cost of the hospital should be covered by the insurance policy.
Moreover, he wrote that continuous discussion with the Church World Service (CWS) in the Philippines and the Interchurch Commission on Medical Care (ICMC), a coordinating agency, was ongoing. He stated that James McGilvray, the medical secretary of the United Presbyterian Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations (UPCEMR), was contacting the chief of the Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Maryland for emergency equipment for shipment to the Philippines, and grants to reconstruct the hospital.
The plan to reconstruct the hospice on the same site where it was burned did not materialize. Difficulty in raising money for the project and the new equipment fell short.
However, it was later decided to transfer the hospital to Madapo Hills after philanthropist David Jacobson, an American Jew honorably discharged from the military service, donated a big lot there and bequeathed most of his hemp plantation in Pantukan, Davao de Oro, to help fund the rebuilding of the medical institution.
