Sister of Edric Baker, Hilary Lynch from Rangitoto, said her brother devoted his life to providing healthcare to the poor in Bangladesh. She holds a copy of <em>Call Me Brother: The Story of a New Zealand Doctor in Bangladesh.</em> Photo Sigrid Christiansen
An ex-Viet Cong prisoner’s “saintly” medical life among the Bangladeshi poor is the subject of a new book, Call Me Brother.
New Zealand’s Mother Theresa: that is how the book’s cover describes the late Edric Baker, a Kiwi born doctor who died in 2016.
His name is not yet famous, but author Kate Day’s work has placed him alongside medical heroes such as Australian obstetrician Catherine Hamlin and Kiwi-born eye surgeon Fred Hollows, whose work also made a profound difference in the world’s most disadvantaged communities of Ethiopia and Nepal.
Edric’s sister, Hilary Lynch from Rangitoto near Te Kūiti, said Edric’s commitment had its roots in their Wellington childhood.
“There were six of us, and right from a young man [Edric] decided that he wanted to be a doctor. He was also a committed Christian.”
That religious philosophy led to his decision to pursue medicine in the developing world, after studies at Otago.
As a young man, he worked in rural Vietnam during the 1970s war.
Once, he and his fellow surgeons removed a “live explosive” from a man’s body, protected by a wall of sandbags and operating through a small hole in the construction. It was later discovered that they had misidentified the bullet, which turned out to be harmless.
Edric remained at his medical post when the town where he was based, Minh Quy, was overrun by communist forces.
“New Zealand pulled out, and he decided to stay. He got taken prisoner by the communists. He thought they would allow him to continue to work, but they didn’t.”
He spent four-and-a-half months in a rough jungle camp, near-starved barring the occasional serve of meat: fish, porcupine rat and bat. He was later freed, expelled as “an enemy of the state” and evacuated.
Later, Edric worked in Zambia and Papua New Guinea before settling in Bangladesh, where he set up the clinic for which he is known, pioneering affordable diabetes treatment: a life-and-death difference for his patients.
The treatment he pioneered cost the equivalent of a few cents per day.
That life-defining work has been explored in-depth in the biography, the result of five years’ work by Kate Day.
She first interviewed Edric on a long journey across the North Island.
Hilary said it was the only time the two could meet on one of his brief visits to New Zealand.
“She heard him speak in Christchurch when he was on one of his fundraising tours around. She rang him and said she’d like to interview him, and he said, ‘well, I’m leaving tomorrow, but I will be on the bus from Waikanae to Auckland’.
“If you can get on that, you can talk to me,” Hilary said.
So, Kate booked tickets, not 100% sure they were even for the right bus.
“He said for every hour he had to have a 10-minute break” Hilary said.
Kate produced an article from the bus ride; in turn, it led to an “expensive” full length book, Hilary explained.
“We, the link group that looks after all the fundraising and everything in New Zealand [for Edric’s clinic], approached her, and she said she would be happy to do it. She did a lot of research, a huge amount of research. We supported her and financed her.”
Kate said readers would enjoy the book’s “action packed” setting amid war, floods, cholera and a “bleak backdrop” of inequality and indifference to suffering.
It could also lead readers to think about their values.
“Edric’s story [represents] a deep challenge: what if we too refused to accept injustice? Could we go ‘all in’ and live out our ideals? [It] is also an encouragement that ordinary people can make a difference,” Kate said.
Kate spent five years on the book: the story “needed to be told,” she said.
“While it was a long road to bring the book to publication, the various stages were each enjoyable and I learned a lot – not least perseverance – through the process.
“The time spent writing was in a sense ‘living with Edric’, and as one interviewee said, ‘saints can be difficult to live with.”
One of the ways life with Edric was challenging, according to the book, was his rigid refusal to spend funds to benefit himself in any way.
His ascetism was such that when his bicycle seat broke, he refused to spend money on a replacement and rode without one until his staff intervened against his will: although he was then an elderly man.
He also refused first-world medical care for himself, preferring only what was available to the poorest Bangladeshi people.
This put his life at risk at times, jeopardising the clinic.
Kate said a key lesson for her was that everyone could make a meaningful difference to those around them.
“His example challenged me to be more generous, but it also encouraged me [to realise] that I do have something to offer. That was his philosophy – that ordinary people can step up. So, I have learned to believe in myself more,” Kate said.
