Mother Teresa Leaves Hospital : Religion: The Nobel Peace Prize winner gets pledges from doctors and nurses in La Jolla that they will set up a network of mobile clinics to serve the poor of Tijuana.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was released from the hospital Wednesday, after securing a pledge from doctors and nurses to set up a volunteer network of mobile medical clinics to serve the poor of Tijuana.

After 20 days at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation here, where she was treated for bacterial pneumonia and heart problems, the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner, wearing her familiar blue-and-white sari, walked outside, carrying one long-stemmed red rose--a gift from one of her doctors. As a crowd of more than 100 applauded, she got into a benefactor’s mobile home for the drive to Tijuana, where she will recuperate for a week or two.

The 81-year-old woman’s last day at Scripps ended with a Mass in her room celebrated by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and attended by her doctors, several of her missionary sisters and some patients who came to know her during her 20-day stay.

At her 15-minute appearance at a news conference--her head barely topping the bank of microphones--Mother Teresa said that her first priority was to “bring the love of God in every heart.”

And asked whether she was going to take better care of herself, she replied, “Oh, sure.”

She said she hoped that she had persuaded American doctors that they need to minister to the poor of Tijuana as well. What struck her about the Third World city adjoining San Diego was that “you don’t expect that kind of poverty” so close to the United States. Asked by a reporter whether she felt uncomfortable receiving some of the best medical care in the world while many in Tijuana go without any medical care, she answered:

“I accept whatever God gives me, and I give to him whatever he takes from me. So today I’m in the best of hospitals and I’ve received the best of service, and I’m very grateful to God for giving me this beautiful gift. And tomorrow, if I have to go to a very poor hospital, I will be just as happy because I’m sure there, too, I will receive love. That’s the most important part.”

One of her doctors, Paul Teirstein, said, “There’s a sign-up sheet outside her room, and there are a dozen doctors signed up on it, and I’m sure she’ll have no trouble getting the 50 that she wants” to staff the mobile clinics.

Her primary physician at Scripps, Dr. Patricia Aubanel--who has a clinic in Tijuana as well--said she will work to establish the mobile medical clinics in Tijuana, in the name of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

For herself, Mother Teresa will return to the clinic in about six months for an extensive recheck of her coronary arteries.

Doctors declared her to be in even better health than she was a year ago, and put no work or travel restrictions on her. “Things could not have gone any better,” Teirstein said.

Outside, along the cordoned-off sidewalk, clinic employees and visitors had gathered to send her off.

“We wanted to see somebody like this who may be a saint some day,” said Ed Brennan of Los Angeles.