Mother Teresa miracle claims attacked

Doctors in India are bitterly critical of the Vatican for putting its seal of approval on a miracle attributed to Mother Teresa.

The controversial miracle involved Indian tribal woman Monica Besra, 30, who had an abdominal tumour. The large tumour apparently vanished and she was completely healed after praying to Mother Teresa.

The miracle reportedly happened in Calcutta's Mother House on September 5, 1998 - a year to the day after Mother Teresa's death.

On Tuesday, after protracted investigations by a special committee constituted to probe the healing, Pope John Paul's office approved of the miracle, moving the Nobel Peace Prize-winning nun one step closer to sainthood.

But doctors who treated Ms Besra, a mother of five, at a government-run hospital in the town of Siliguri from June 1998 to May 1999 say she was cured by medicine which was administered to her and are vehemently criticising the Vatican for declaring the healing a miracle. Quoting medical records, they said she was diagnosed, treated and cured scientifically.

Dr M. Musad and Dr A. Mustafi, of North Bengal University Medical College Hospital, who treated Ms Besra, said she had complained of severe abdominal pain and chronic headache when she first came to them in June 1998 from her village, Nakor.