THE ARRIVAL OF DR. AND MRS GEORGE GREEN IN ÒGBÓMÒSÓ
On March 18, 1907, Dr. and Mrs. George Green arrived Ogbomosho where they started the Ogbomoso Baptist Hospital [Now Bowen University Teaching Hospital (BUTH)]
George was born July 26, 1872, in London, relocated to Montreal, Canada in 1894, and lived briefly in Cleveland, Ohio. On November 17, 1906, the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention appointed him the first medical missionary to Africa.
When London-born Dr. George Green and his wife Lydia arrived in Ogbomoso from the United States of America on March 18, 1907, they brought Dr. Green’s personal medical instruments, some drugs, and fifty dollars.
The Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention has provided to begin medical work in Nigeria. The newly-married couple settled into the house Rev. C. E. Smith had built twenty-five earlier (near the present Antioch Baptist Church).
The next day, a girl about four years old was brought to him because of her crooked legs. Dr. Green converted the dining room into an operation theatre and the dining table into an operating table for the straightening of the girl’s legs.
Mrs. Green served as the nurse and Rev. S. G. Pimock administered Chloroform as the anesthesia. In a few weeks, the girl’s running around was proof of the operation’s success.
Through this first successful operation, the ministry of healing then known as the Baptist Medical Centre began now transformed to a Bowen University Teaching Hospital in 2009.
Two (2) years later the Greens moved to another house where the ground level served as the hospital while the top floor served as their living quarters, in 1911 the departure of a missionary made a separate house available, but the expansion of the ministry necessitate the addition of thatched sheds on either side of the house to serve as wards for male and female patients.
When the government Rest House and the post office across the road from the hospital were to be relocated, the Baptist Mission applied for the present site of almost forty (40) acres. The young women of the WMU of Virginia, Mrs. Green’s home state provided the first funds for permanent buildings in 1917.
A special campaign of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1919 contributed additional funds. In 1921 the Executive Committee of the Baptist Mission approved the plans for proposed buildings. The cornerstone was laid in December of that year.
Dr. E. G. Maclean, a dentist who has moved from Iwo to Ogbomoso to supervise the construction of the buildings for the Baptist College and Seminary, also supervised the beginning of the construction of the new hospital buildings. In 1922, Rev H. P McCormick came to finish the construction.
On July 4, 1923, The Baptist Hospital was dedicated and opened for use. Those mud buildings were used for 36 years until they were torn down for the space to be utilized for the construction of the initial part of the present facility which was dedicated on August 16, 1959.
Through the years the hospital has expanded to include other aspects of medical work, such as the training of General Medical Practitioners, nurses, and housemen, providing treatment for victims of Hansen’s Disease and tuberculosis, caring for motherless babies, and malnourished children, and providing dental care.
Dr. Geoge Green married Lydia Barnes Williams on January 9, 1907 and together they spent 37 years in Nigeria. Dr. George Green was installed Ba’asegun of Ògbómòsó and died in 1962 at the age of 90.
What they lay down is still serving the people of Ogbomoso till date.
In memory of Dr. George Green, the Ba’asegun Of Ogbomoso, and his wife, George Green Baptist college, Ogbomoso was inaugurated on Wednesday 6th October, 2004.
On the 7th October 2004, teaching commenced with sixty – three (63) Pioneer students and 10 (ten) Pioneer tutors under the leadership of Mr. David A. Oladunni (now of blessed memory) the 1st Principal.
George Green Baptist College, Ògbómòsó operated on Bowen University Teaching Hospital staff school as a temporary site before moving to its permanent site at Baby area, Ogbomoso on 25th/9/2006.
Source: My wooden Words
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