In Assam’s Barak Valley, households as soon as confronted an inconceivable selection: journey 24 hours throughout harmful roads to Guwahati for remedy, or keep house and watch a cherished one slip away. Poverty saved many from even making an attempt. On this cut-off valley, most cancers was not simply an sickness — it was virtually a dying sentence.

Meet Dr Ravi Kannan, who’s bringing hope — and remedy — to hundreds by way of an modern mannequin of compassionate most cancers care.

Shining the highlight on Dr Ravi Kannan

In 2007, Dr Kannan — then a number one oncologist at Chennai’s Adyar Most cancers Institute — made a life-altering resolution. Forsaking a safe profession, he moved along with his spouse and younger daughter to Silchar to take cost of the struggling Cachar Most cancers Hospital.

“Once I first got here right here, we realised this was the place we must be. The necessity was immense, and we couldn’t flip away,” he remembers.

Again then, the hospital was little greater than a constructing with 25 beds and 23 employees. Infrastructure was virtually non-existent. Most sufferers have been each day wage earners, incomes barely Rs 3,000 a month. Selecting between remedy and a day’s revenue typically meant remedy misplaced.

Dr Kannan determined that this example needed to change. His workforce started providing free or subsidised care, nutritious meals, and even small jobs for sufferers’ attendants so households wouldn’t go hungry. They took drugs to individuals’s properties, arrange satellite tv for pc clinics, and even supplied telephone consultations — something to make sure sufferers by no means had to surrender on remedy.

“Nobody must be denied entry to remedy resulting from an absence of cash,” he says.

Winner of the ‘Well being Changemaker of the Yr’ (class sponsor: Optum) at Optum Presents The Higher India Showcase, supported by the M3M Basis, Dr Kannan’s story underscores how compassion and resilience can rework healthcare in India’s underserved areas.

How one hospital turned a lifeline for hundreds

Seventeen years later, the hospital is unrecognisable. From a handful of employees, it has grown right into a 200-strong workforce of medical doctors, nurses, and caregivers. The variety of beds has quadrupled. Departments for palliative care, dental surgical procedure, and intensive care now stand the place there was as soon as solely wrestle.

The numbers inform their very own story: greater than 70,000 individuals have acquired remedy right here, with 3,000 new sufferers and 14,000 follow-ups yearly. Most pay little or nothing. Many journey from neighbouring states and even Bangladesh, as a result of on this nook of Assam, hope has a brand new deal with.

The challenges stay. Funds trickle in from people and NGOs. Employees work for lower than they might earn in greater cities. However nobody is giving up. “The satisfaction we get from serving this neighborhood is indescribable,” says Dr Kannan.

Whereas Dr Kannan was among the many winners at Optum Presents The Higher India Showcase, supported by the M3M Basis, we consider true recognition is what comes even after the applause. And so, we might be highlighting tales of the winners throughout classes for the subsequent few weeks.

Learn in regards to the different winners right here.

Edited by Pranita Bhat