Tamil Nadu   

PHC remembers founder

Staff Reporter

Centre funded by public donations

— PHOTO: R. RAGU

A HELPING HAND: Senior Vice-President of Polaris K. Govindarajan helps an elderly person try on new spectacles distributed at the 14th memorial function for PHC founder M.C. Subrahmanyam in Chennai on Sunday.

CHENNAI : M.C. Subrahmanyam set up the Public Health and Welfare Society (popularly known as Public Heath Centre) in a hut in 1953 with one doctor and a lamp, in West Mambalam, when doctors were rare and people had to travel to the distant government hospitals.

Today, the centre has evolved into a multi-speciality facility catering to middle class and lower middle class families in the area. Since its inception, it has depended on doctors who volunteer their services for the poor. The centre continues to be run on public donations, said M.K. Srinivasan, its president and medical director.

The PHC employees and people associated with the centre paid tribute on the occasion of the founder's memorial function held here on Sunday.

Five staff members who had served the centre for over 25 years lit the lamp and inaugurated the function that was attended by K. Govindarajan, senior vice president of Polaris and M.B. Nirmal, founder of Exnora International.

The guests lauded the efforts of the centre and distributed spectacles to needy patients and awards to the staff. Mementos were distributed to ophthalmologists.

Mr. Govindarajan said Polaris provided merit scholarships to Corporation school children from classes 9 to 12 with the aim of returning to society what it had received. So far Rs. 60 lakh worth scholarship had been distributed, he added. The students were also provided computer education. "We are also from the middle class," he told the gathering of patients and well wishers.

Mr. Nirmal said the PHC has grown in stature because of the trust invested in it by the people seeking services there. The 1956 batch of students from Madras Medical College offered a donation of Rs. 75,000 to the centre as their token of appreciation of work done by the centre.

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