With 51 years of mental health service through neuro-psychiatry behind her, Dr Adelia
Costa is still a strong woman at the age of 90 years. She served as the
Director of Abade Faria Hospital, the then psychiatric hospital in Panjim, and
was not only the first Goan woman but the first woman in Portugal to obtain the
specialty of neurology, awarded by the Order of Physicians in 1958. A huge
achievement for a woman in those times and yet very few Goans knew about it,
including her family. Currently, due to her health problems, Dr Adelia is
living with her sister, Satya Costa Ferreira, and brother-in-law, Judge Alvaro
Noronha Ferreira in Panjim.
Originally from Loutolim, Dr Adelia is the daughter of late
Manuel Salvador da Costa and late Carolina Peres e Costa. The fourth of nine
siblings, she did her primary education at the Government Primary School in
Loutolim before moving with the family to Panjim where she completed her middle
school at Lyceum in Panjim. “My father lost his father when he was four years
old and he couldn’t pursue his studies. He was very keen that we should study
and be independent, especially the girls. He rented a house in Panjim and
brought the children for studies to Panjim. We didn’t have financial means but
my father got a loan and sent my eldest brother to Portugal. My father wanted
all of us to have the same education. My eldest brother-in-law also helped. My
eldest brother helped Adelia to pursue her education in Portugal. I was only 2
years old when she left Goa,” says Satya, the mother of Dr Teresa Ferreira,
Head of the Department of Neurology at the GMC.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
After completing her high school, Dr Adelia studied at Goa
Medical College in Panjim. However, she had to repeat the two years she studied
in Goa within a year in Portugal. She was 20 years old when she obtained a
transfer to the Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa, where she graduated in 1952
and is a colleague of Balcão Reis, Fernando Paredes and Jorge Girão. She
interned at the General Hospital of the Civil Hospitals of Lisbon, along with
doctors like Carlos George and Sacadura Bote.
When it was time to pursue a specialty course, Dr Adelia decided
on Neurology, a first for any woman in Portugal, especially for a Goan woman.
She joined the Service of Neurology of the Hospital of the Capuchos, in 1955,
where her colleagues were Miranda Rodrigues and Orlando de Carvalho. In 1958,
she underwent the examination to obtain the title of specialist in Neurology by
the Order of Physicians and immediately returned to Goa.
“Our parents were ageing and she decided to come down to Goa to
be with them. She had a brilliant future there in Portugal but she wanted to
help our parents. She is an excellent sister; while she didn’t socialise much,
she was all out to help. She was a second mother to us. Our parents had
returned to the village and my sister and I lived with Adelia in Altinho. She
was very sincere to the point of being harsh sometimes,” says Satya, the
youngest in the family among four brothers and five sisters. Her father
encouraged all the children to have the same educational opportunities,
including the chance to complete their further studies in Portugal. Their
family consisted of an electronic engineer, agronomical engineer, neurologist,
mining engineer, doctor, chemical engineer, a sister who completed her
secretarial course and Satya was a chemistry professor at the University of
Lisboa, Portugal.
In 1958, Dr Adelia applied for the job of neuropsychiatry from
Portugal itself at the Mental Hospital of Goa, which was named as Abade Faria
Hospital two years later and is now known as the Institute of Psychiatry and
Human Behavior (IPHB). She served as the Director of Abade Faria Hospital
before returning back to Lisbon in 1962 to take a new examination in the
Medical Order, this time obtaining the title of Specialist in Psychiatry.
“She gave a new look to the hospital. People used to be locked
up in the rooms. She changed that thinking completely and treated them like
normal patients. She had a way with the people, giving them a sense of being
human. She had a gift with people of consulting them,” says her sister. After
returning to Goa in 1963, she continued private practice of neurology and
psychiatry for many years. “She is a very simple person; her profession and
service to the people was all that mattered. She worked for 51 years and is not
rich at all. On the contrary, she would give money to her patients who couldn’t
afford medicines. She was living in Altinho and was completely independent. She
used to practise in Panjim, Margao and Mapusa,” says Satya.
Dr
Adelia is now in the care of her family that treats her with quality time. Her
birthday will be celebrated tomorrow, August 27, 2018, with the cutting of the
cake and reminiscing of the good old times she remembers.
