Jeevodaya Day Care Clinic

Inauguration - 11th October 2016

Another milestone in the history of Jeevodaya was the opening of the Day Care Clinic on the 11th of October 2016, on the occasion of International Hospice and Palliative Care Celebrations. The Clinic is housed in 64, Gangadeswarar Koil Street, 1st lane, Purasawalkam, Chennai, 600084, in the heart of Chennai city.

This fulfils the long felt need of Jeevodaya and the patients to have a place in the city with easy access for patients who needed Palliative Care services on an outpatient basis. This centre is expected to act as an extension arm of Jeevodaya hospice in-patient services at Mathur,Manali with seamless integration of the two services. The Clinic will function from Monday to Friday between 10am and 1pm.

As usual all Palliative Care services will be rendered “FREE OF COST” to all Cancer patients.

The Function

The Clinic was inaugurated on Tuesday, the 11th of October, 2016, at 10.30am by the Chief Guest Dr. R. Rajaraman, Retired Professor and HOD of Surgical Oncology, Govt. Royapettah Hospital, Chennai, who is an ardent supporter of Jeevodaya for the past 15 odd years. The honour of lighting the “ kuthuvilakku (lamp)” was given to Mrs. Rukmini Devi Dorairaj, a senior patron of Jeevodaya who has graciously given us the premises for starting the Clinic. She was accompanied by Dr.Rajaraman, Sr. Nicetta FCC,(Alvernia Province),Mother Superior of Jeevodaya, Dr. Udaya Mahadevan, Retd.Professor of Social work, Loyola College, Chennai, and a founder member of Jeevodaya, Sr. Lalitha Teresa FCC,(Alvernia Province), Secretary and a founder member of Jeevodaya, Dr. Pacifica Simon, Retd. Director of ENT, Madras Medical College, and Dr. Ponni, Joint Medical Director, Jeevodaya. This was followed by a multi religious prayer Father Antu Panadan invoked the blessings of Lord Jesus with a prayer and by sprinkling holy water. Young Vishali sang a melodious song in praise of Lord Ganesha and Goddess Saraswathi (it incidentally was also Vijayadasami day), Mr.Sadiq, relative of Dr. Abdul Jabbar, translated an Urdu prayer into Tamil, which was well appreciated as everybody could understand the meaning of the prayer, Ms. Radhika Prashanth, who was the MC, read out a verse from the “Gospel of Buddha” and finally we had the good fortune to have three Jain monks – “Gurus”- come to say some Jain prayers. The prayer session concluded with everyone joining in to sing “Raghupathi Raghava Rajaram…..Yesu, Allah thero naam….”

Everyone next moved over to the main hall for the next session which was cutting of the inaugural cake by the three founder members of Jeevodaya, Dr. Manjula Krishnaswamy, Sr. Lalitha Teresa and Dr. Udaya Mahadevan.

Sr. Lalitha Teresa briefed the audience about the activities of Jeevodaya and the need for the new venture, which was to have a centre in the heart of the city for the convenience of our patients who could have easy access to palliative care on an outpatient basis. Felicitations followed- those who spoke included, Dr. Rajaraman, Chief guest, Dr. Udaya Mahadevan, Dr. Pacifica Simon, Dr. Koteeswaran, Dr.Meera, Dr.Ponni and Dr.Ramanan(Medical Oncologist). Mr. Ramachandrudu, husband of Dr. Manjula, spoke from the heart detailing the “ behind the scene” happenings in the family before the inception of Jeevodaya nearly 27 years ago and before this new venture. He recalled how his late father Dr. Dorairaj , when the concept of the hospice was first told to him, simply pulled out a five hundred rupee note and gave it as the first donation. He also recalled how Mr. Shanmugam a blind social work student of Dr. Udaya, gave his entire stipend of Rs.300/- as donation at the first public meeting to bless the foundation stone of Jeevodaya on August 15th 1991. In fact today's function was a mini replica of the multi-religious prayer and blessings Jeevodaya had on that memorable day.

He also thanked his mother, Mrs. Rukmini Devi and his sister Dr. Saraswathi Devil for voluntarily offering the premises to run the Day Care clinic on a rent free basis.

Finally Dr. Manjula Krishnaswamy, Honorary Medical Director, who will be principally in charge of the Day Care Clinic, thanked all those who had come and all those who had sent in their best wishes for their overwhelming support and assured them, as always, Jeevodaya would continue with its mission of trying to alleviate the suffering of the cancer patients and to ensure that they live with dignity and die in peace. She read out the words of Dalai Lama on death and dying from the book “ Tibetan book of Living and Dying”. She concluded by reaffirming Jeevodaya's motto