The Hindu : Front Page : Steel in spirit, heart made of gold

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Sunday, Nov 04, 2007
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Steel in spirit, heart made of gold

Swathi. V

I. Mamatha

HYDERABAD: A hat-trick in Tourism Excellence Awards is not much of an introduction to I. Mamatha who received her third award two days back. Although surviving on dialysis for seven years, fragile in health and faint in physique, she represents a spirit of steel. With a nodular hand that endured hundreds of needle strokes, she still aims to wipe the tears of her ilk.

Till four years ago, life had been very tough with Mamatha. Originally from Ongole, she had been diagnosed with infected kidneys soon after childbirth. Put on dialysis, she lost both her kidneys eventually. “It was then that I began writing a book on temples and tourist spots of Andhra Pradesh. I roamed desperately about bus stands and railway stations to sell copies,” she says. Later, she came to know of her eligibility to ESI. The situation relaxed to a great extent, but she did not. Mamatha is presently the writer-cum-editor of the tourism magazine “Bharateeya Samskriti” which fetched her the awards.

Also the Founder-Member of the Welfare Association of Kidney Patients, she has been travelling around the State collecting data about patients who cannot afford dialysis.

“Very few government hospitals offer maintenance dialysis. Poor people resort to frequent postponing of dialysis and put up with unbearable agony,” she says.

Supplying free medicines and finding a lifelong patron for each patient will be the objectives of the association, says Mamatha, the sole working member — failing health does not allow many to participate.

“I consider myself fortunate. For most women, dialysis means divorce,” she says cheerfully.

Call 94402 18174

Managing home, health and work alone is not easy for Mamatha either. Anybody wishing to support her cause may dial 94402 18174.

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