With a focused mission to alleviate pain and human suffering, this Pune-based Army Veteran and his Anaesthetist wife founded the Care India Medical Society.
A public charitable trust, CIMS provides palliative care to cancer patients from the underprivileged sections of society. Registered in February 1993, CIMS completed 25-years of care giving this year.
To celebrate this quintessential caregiver, we spoke to Col.(Retd) NS Nyayapathi to get insights into a typical day from his amazing calendar of unstinted service…
Extremely moved by the pain he had to witness his mother go through during the advanced stages of kidney cancer, the Founder Trustee N S Nyayapathi with wife Dr. Madhuri Kavoori have worked hard to make CIMS grow steadily from a single office table to a 15 bed hospital called Vishranti.
“Time is limited,” believes Nyayapathi who works tirelessly to be able to do all that is possible in the limited time span, irrespective of what the situation demands.
“I was unwell this morning, yet I went to the doctor in AFMC requesting him to do a surgery for us, which was postponed and was scheduled for today. My being under the weather wasn’t as important for me.
“I believe that when you come to the age I am at, some saintly thinking is normal. I do things that I believe is right, devoid of concern of what others think of me. If I can help somebody every day, or can help save a life, it is a blessing. Every life is important,” he adds.
Despite not having a medical background, Nyayapathi is an avid reader of books and journals of medical science.
Till date, he has never taken a day off,” says Gita Kalia, Director, Planning and Development at CIMS. Even at night, he will be brainstorming and will draft notes or at times, send us instructions as late as two in the wee hours of the morning.
“Well, If you are unable to sleep, what else can you do, but to think and work,” says the soft spoken Nyayapathi.
This I do because I think I might forget later, and since I am awake, I can send them the messages, because everything is so important for me. At times, when my mind gets too proactive, I tend to put a stop and try going to bed.
When quizzed about his time off-work and what he does for leisure, he quips, “By the time I reach home from the hospital around 7pm, I am hungry.
“I take my regular cup of tea and snack on something. I put my feet up on the recliner, switch on the TV and scan through the channels.
“I invariably end up seeing Arnab Goswami shouting at the top of his voice on several unnecessary things. Politics for me is more a joke, than anything else”, says Nyayapathi, smiling.
“I enjoy old Hindi songs, Ghazals and Carnatic music. But right now I don’t have the time and patience, to switch on these gadgets and listen to them. If at all I do so, it is only after 11:00 pm when the family sleeps.
Off late, I have developed a habit to read al the group chats on my mobile, read all the jokes, have a hearty laugh and sleep..
“I do meet a couple of my friends, once in ten days or so and we bond and have a drink and chat. Franky, I hardly meet my relatives more than twice or thrice a year,” he adds…
“I come regularly to the hospital and keep track of the medical condition of the patients that were there the last night.
“I meet them personally and go through the reports and discuss these cases with the doctors and matron. Every day, we see young women coming with breast cancer or ovarian cancer, besides several other medical conditions and one needs to deal with them, with utmost care and skill. The patients come to me and say, ‘Sir, I want to live for my children’..
“How can one deny or let them be without medical help? Honestly, it is not as simple as it seems when you have to deal with human beings every day of your life,” he says, signing off.
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#First published in March 2018
Reach her at loveleen@pune365.com or tweet @KaurKaur18
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