In the early ’90s, a doctor-couple, Regi M George and Lalitha, visited the non-descript tribal village of Sittilingi in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu.
They were there as part of a mission to map the most sensitive areas in need of help.
The visit, however, left them disconcerted. They had the choice of furthering their profession in cities but the plight of residents there moved them so much that they decided to settle down there once and for all to serve the people. Hundreds die in this remote village every year for want of healthcare facilities.
Having decided to settle down here, the couple began from a small hut and transformed it into a small medical facility. The aim was to provide quality healthcare services at an affordable rate. And they succeeded in their mission.
Village residents these days no longer travel 50km away for treatment or for some surgery at a city hospital. Sittilingi once registered the highest infant mortality rate of 150 per 1,000 babies, the highest in the country. Today it has come down to 20 per 1,000. Moreover, no mothers have died during childbirth in the last 10 years, said Dr Regi.
Speaking to Better India magazine, he said: “We had no money to buy land, so we set up a small clinic on government land, nothing more than a small hut built by tribals. We worked out of this hut for three years, conducting deliveries and minor surgeries on the floor.”
Friends and well-wishers donated funds to build a 10-bed hospital.
Today, they have come a long way from the thatched hut to a 35-bed full-fledged hospital, which is equipped with an ICU and ventilator, a dental clinic, a labour room, a neonatal room, an emergency room, a fully functional laboratory, a modern operation theatre and other facilities like X-Ray, Ultrasound, endoscopy, and echocardiography, like in any other modern hospital.
Even today, deliveries are conducted at costs as low as Rs 1,000, and 80-90 per cent of OPD admissions are reserved for the tribal population. “Some may think it is biased, but it is really them (the tribals) who need our help the most,” Dr Regi said. “They had not seen a real doctor in a long time. If a child were admitted due to meningitis, the villagers would think it was affected by spirits and look for a witch doctor. In the case of snakebite, they wanted to do a puja. We learnt that one of the most important practices was never to counter their beliefs. If they said they wanted a puja to be conducted, we let them do it by the bedside.”
More than 95 per cent of their staff at the hospital are tribals. Dr Lalitha has been ensuring that the employed women also get employee benefits like Provident Fund (PF) and gratuity.
“Most of our nurses, lab technicians, paramedics, and health auxiliaries are tribal boys and girls, who have been trained by us or others. It is a hospital for the tribals by the tribals, operating in a 50km radius, serving one lakh people every year,” she told Better India.
