CV Dr Josephine J. Kunnacherry
                            Project Director of Family Health Care


Person in charge of the project: Dr Josephine J. Kunnacherry, consultant obstetrician and
gynaecologist, is the Project Director of Family Health Care.

Nationality: Indian

Experience:
After finishing her medical training at the University of Navarre, Spain, Dr Kunnacherry was involved
in many Service Projects in different villages of the North of Spain, with medical students and young
Doctors, for 12 years. She teached in the Medical School and the Nursing School of the University of
Navarre for 10 years, and worked as a Consultant Gynaecologist in the Clinica Universitaria,
Pamplona, for 4 years.

In 1983, she went to Nigeria to help starting a general hospital of 60 beds in Enugu: Chief Dennis
Memorial Hospital. She worked there as a Consultant Gynaecologist. At the request of the Medical
Director of the Hospital, she was given supervision and administrative responsibilities.

In 1988 she helped rehabilitating St Mary’ Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria, where she was Assistant Medical
Director and Consultant Gynaecologist until 1993.

Once these two hospitals were functioning well, she accepted the invitation of a Nigerian Non
Governmental Organization (Niger Welfare Foundation, registered society, Lagos) with the help of
Manos Unidas, to start a non-profit making hospital in Enugu (former Biafra) to attend all types of
people, poor and rich: Niger Foundation Hospital. They started with an OPD clinic (Out-Patient
Department) and 12 beds for in-patients. In 10 months, it became necessary to make a bigger hospital.
With the help of various NGOs (Manos Unidas, Spain; Fomento, Spain; Swiss Grant, Switzerland)
and many philanthropic people in Nigeria, they were able to build a 30 bedded hospital with a good
diagnostic center. After a few years of existence, Niger Foundation Hospital became one of the best
hospitals in Nigeria and it is now a reference center for other hospitals. It is quoted in the list of
hospitals recommended by many Embassies, such as the Embassies of France, Spain, etc… Patients
come from the Coast and part of West Nigeria to receive diagnostic, medical and surgical treatment.

During the period 1983-1997,Dr Kunnacherry conducted many free medical camps with medical
students and young doctors, in rural areas of the eastern part of Nigeria.

She came to Delhi in 1997, at the request of an Indian NGO - Educational and Development Initiatives
(E.D.I). She started Women’s Health Centre (WHC), a non-profit making medical centre with co-
financing funds from the Agencia Española para la Cooperación Iinternational (AECI) of the
Government of Spain, and a Spanish NGO, Fundación Promoción Social de la Cultura (FPSC) for the
period November 1998-June 2001. It allowed the establishment of a medical clinic in South Delhi, and
a dependent mobile clinic for feminine primary health care.

WHC was later on renamed Family Health Care (FHC). Its objectives are the medical care for well-off
as well as underprivileged patients, training of professional and volunteer staff, prevention of
infectious diseases and of uterus cancer. Most of the beneficiaries are uneducated women. Thanks to
the income generated by the out-patient clinic, attention is given free of charge to a large number of
patients in urban slum areas of Delhi, with the help of volunteer doctors and nurses. The results
obtained are more than satisfactory, as regard the quality of medical and human care provided to all, as
well as the contentment of the beneficiaries.


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