My name is Sjoerd Zondervan, economist and historian. I worked a great deal of my life in the management of hospitals in the Netherlands and I worked now and then also in the health sector of other countries, sometimes to assist the Netherlands Management Cooperation Program (PUM). For this Program I was sent abroad as senior expert on several missions. Three of these missions took place in Indonesia.
On the 29th of September 2016, I defended a thesis on hospital care in colonial times at Maastricht University. Prof.dr.E.S.Houwaart and Prof.dr.P.Boomgaard supervised the project of this Phd research.
The title of the resulting study: Patients of the Colonial State. Subtitle: The rise of a hospital system in the Netherlands Indies, 1890 – 1940. The contents of this book can be consulted under the heading Book as e-publication.
I invite readers to comment on the subject and if available, to supply additional information that may lead to corrections or additions to the published data. Email-address: historicalhospitals@gmail.com
Historical Hospitals 
Hello, Mr. Zondervan. I’m a public health student from Indonesia and now learning the history of hospital in Indonesia. Could you please send to my email the full version please?
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I have a copy of a letter from my grandfather, Ray Perkins, MD, dated February, 22, 1914 that may be of interest to you. He was a Methodist missionary doctor to Tjisaroea (now Cisarua). Most of the letter describes his travels from England to Jakarta in 1913. I believe he would have been one of the founding physicians of the Mission Hospital Cisarua.
He was from Malone, NY, a town just a few miles from the Canadian border.
Here are the pertinent paragraphs:
Well, we arrived at Buitenzorg at 12:30 noon, and as the people did not know we were coming, again we had to use our Malay. We soon arrived at the home of the Buchanan’s however and received a hearty welcome from Mrs. Buchanan. (Mr Buchanan did not arrive till the next steamer.)
We have also written about our stay at Buitenzorg for two months, studying language, visiting the kompongs or villages with Mr. Archer, Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Worthington, of my trip through the Island east with Bro. Buchanan, looking for hospital sites, visiting the missionary hospitals of the Dutch missionaries, visiting our work at Soekaradja, etc, etc. I wish I had a day to tell you all about the beauties of Java, but I can’t this time. It really is a beautiful island though, and I hope you will all visit some day.
The final stage of our journey did not come till May 18 when we came to Tjisaroea, to our new home here. It is a beautiful spot up in the mountains 3,000 ft. above sea level, in a beautiful valley where rice is grown in the bottom of the valley and tea on the slopes of the mountains. We are only three miles from the head of the valley, so we have mountains on three sides of us.As we sit at our table eating we look out the open door and see pretty a mountain peak as one could wish for, rising above us, still 6,000 ft. higher than we are. The rose garden beside the house, the rice fields beyond for a mile, all up a gentle slope, the tea gardens beyond on the foot of the mountain, and then the old peak as it rises very steeply beyond, well, you must all come and see it for yourselves. If I tell you much more now you will think I am not truthful, so I better stop.
Some day I will write all about our work here, the people, our home, etc. etc. I hope this letter is not so long that you will never want to see another letter. It has been a wonderful trip for us. We often stop and ask each other if it really is so, or are we still dreaming. But there have been so many good things that we know it can’t all be a dream. We are far from home, but it seems only a little way after one has traveled it and seen all the things in between.
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Hai Sjoerd, ik neem aan dat je Nederlands kan lezen. Ik ben Carel Pronk. Mijn beroep is woningruimer. We ruimen woningen leeg na overlijden of opname op een permanente zorgafdeling. Ik doe dit werk al 10 jaar en soms vind ik achtergelaten spullen die mijn interesse wekken. Tussen een stapel weggegooide paperassen vond ik een brief van Dr. J.A. Voorthuis. Volgens mij was hij verbonden aan het ziekenhuis in Sinabang. Interesse? Ik stuur het graag op. met vriendelijke groet, Carel Pronk
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Beste Carel,
Ik had je bericht gemist. Daarvoor mijn excuses. Ik ben zeker geinteresseerd in de brief van dr. Voorthuis.
Ik hoop dat je hem nog in je bezit hebt.
In afwachting van je bericht,
vriendelijke groet,
Sjoerd Zondervan
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Hai Sjoerd, Ik had jouw bericht van 16/2 ook gemist. Ik heb dus die brief van Dr. Voorthuis en een boekje Drie jaren te Sinabang van Dr. Voorthuis uit 1918. Zal ik het naar je opsturen? Dan graag je adres. Groet Carel Pronk
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Hartelijk dank voor je bericht. Ik zie de 2 documenten graag tegemoet op mijn adres: Tineke Guilonardlaan 24, 1183 DM Amstelveen.
Met vriendelijke groet,
Sjoerd Zondervan
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