By Bronwyn Hastings

An ‘ahead of her time’ Canadian colleague who drove healthcare changes in impoverished communities has inspired Horsham-born nurse Nicky McMaster to write her first book.

The idea of the self-published biography ‘Twelve Stones of Grace: The Story of Dr. Aletta G. Bell’ came about in 2015.

“She said people had been telling her to write her story – her stories were captivating when she spoke anywhere, but she found it daunting to put anything in print,” Ms McMaster said.

“In 2016, when she was turning 80, I spent a couple of months with her.

“She drove me around Canada, the United States and Wales, interviewing her old mates she worked with in India. 

“At the time I thought I could just write it remotely, but life is too busy and it doesn’t really happen if you’re not on the ground. 

“So, I went back to Canada for six months, and returned to Australia eight or nine years later.”

Ms McMaster was in her early 20s when she met Dr Bell; she worked alongside her on a short-term community health and development mission in India.

“I kept in loose contact with her – it was postcards to start with and then it was emails as that sort of developed – and if I was travelling and went to India we would connect,” she said. 

“It was a real journey to write the book. There was a lot of travelling and research, and she got older, and then COVID-19 broke out.”

The book was published then launched in October last year at a county library book fair, bringing together its authors and residents who were subjects of books.

“We spent two days in the library with the book and all these other authors, the community came, and it was a really fun time,” Ms McMaster said.

“But she became unwell around Christmas and passed away in January, but at least we had the time to celebrate the book. 

“She had an amazing life – she was one of nine children and the only one to have an education.

“She came off the farm and got a scholarship to go to university and become a doctor.

“She decided because she’d been given a gift that none of her family had, she would do something significant with it. 

“She always thought she would like do something in an impoverished country.”

During her residency in Chicago in the 1960s, Dr Bell’s mentor suggested she go to Arabia for a couple of months as a locum worker.

“It was there that she realised there was a real place for her as a female doctor in that time, to give healthcare to women and children with Muslim or impoverished backgrounds,” Ms McMaster said.

“She ended up in a place in north India where there was a Muslim population, where she built a hospital for the women and children of the area. 

“It’s still going today, and has expanded. She was seeing people come in with diseases or sicknesses that were preventable, so she moved out of the hospital to do education and build better water. This is just what people do now, but she was before her time.”

 People can buy the book as a hard copy or Kindle version online, or in-person at Horsham store Jacob’s Well. 

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