​Prathap Chandra Reddy, a meticulous healer of our time

Years back, when I was in Bajali College hostel, my roommate fall sick. He was treated in Pathshala civil hospital for some weeks, but his health only deteriorated. Following the direction of our hostel superintendent, I informed his family members in the village. Next morning his father, a retired school teacher, arrived in our hostel and took the roommate to his home. His father also prepared a leave application for my roommate and asked me to submit it to the hostel superintendent. His father murmured, “It will take time (to recover), I will send him to Apollo.”

For me, it was a formal introduction to Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. Later I came to know many patients, who went to Chennai Apollo for treatment and returned with smiling faces. For them, the Apollo was comfortable as it turned to be cheaper and also satisfactory as the medical staff passionately listened to their difficulties before prescribing any medicines.

That is why they found it useful to visit Chennai Apollo even after taking the pain of two days & three nights train journey. And the exercises continued (continue for many till date) for years, almost like an annual pilgrimage.

By the middle of Ninety, by then I became a full-time scribe, I visited the Apollo hospital in Chennai and even got the opportunity to meet Dr. Prathap Chandra Reddy, the man behind the Apollo healthcare movement.
I tried to understand the visionary medical entrepreneur who emerged as a caring & soft spoken gentleman for me. As usual, I put some questions with the journalistic instinct to Dr. Reddy and he answered clearly. About his struggling life, he avoided the narration but said a book was coming out with most of his stories. Otherwise, he was a happy man with his wife, four working daughters with a host of relatives.

And it happened sweetly when I got a copy of his biography at my office in Guwahati. The voluminous and splendid book titled ‘Healer Dr. Prathap Chandra Reddy and the Transformation of India’ carries a life
size photograph of a smiling physician at the cover page and anyone looking at his face can understand the confidence, energy and satisfaction possessed by Dr. Reddy in his life.

Published by Penguin Books India, New Delhi in December 2013, the English version of the biography, which is authored by journalist turned writer Pranay Gupte, comprises 548 pages and priced at Indian rupees 899. Forwarded by Allan E. Goodman, president of the US-based Institute of International Education, the book sincerely describes the life of a revolutionary of our time.

For records, Apollo Hospital is recognized as India's first corporate hospital group. Emerged as one of the world’s largest providers of high-technology health care in reasonable prices, the group achieves a
combined annual turnover of not less than US $ 100 million.

Presently staffed by around 70,000 professionals the Apollo Hospital Group with over 10,000 beds in more than 50 hospitals had served nearly 45 million patients from 121 countries. With its first clinic started in Dubai decades back, the group now comes out with the plan to start similar projects in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Oman and many African countries.

But the beginning of his extraordinary journey carried no such significance. Born on 5 February 1933 at Aragonda locality of Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh, Dr. Reddy completed his primary educations in native places and then shifted to Madras Christian College, Chennai. He completed his graduation in medical science from Stanley Medical College. Then he went abroad for higher studies and even worked as a resident doctor at Missouri State Chest Hospital and Worcester City Hospital in America.

However, an emotional letter from his parent changed his course of the journey, where they asked Dr. Reddy to come back and serve the native people. Accordingly he returned to India in 1970 and started practicing in Madras (now Chennai) as a cardiologist with a modest earning of rupees 100 per day. He worked happily in HM Hospital for a decade.

But a tragic event changed his way of life. Dr. Reddy treated a middle-aged heart patient in 1979 and suggested the patient to go outside India for the life-saving heart surgery. But the patient was too poor
to follow Dr. Reddy’s advice and finally he died. The incident shook Dr. Reddy’s conscience and pledged that he would bring all modern quality healthcare facilities to India.

After numerous problems and limitations, Dr. Reddy finally erected the building of Apollo Hospital in Chennai. The then President Gyani Zail Singh inaugurated the hospital with 150 beds on 18 September 1983. Soon the hospital expanded its wings to different parts of the country. Over 150 telemedicine centres in different countries are also run by the Apollo Hospital.

Till date, the Apollo Hospital received a number of awards including Modern Medicare Excellence Award (2006), Commemorative Postage Stamp by the Government of India (2009), G20 Award for Inclusive Business Innovation (2012) etc. Dr. Reddy took the pain to lobby for corporatizing his hospital as most
of the hospitals, during that period, was either run by the government or charitable trusts. Of course, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi amended various institutional acts in the Parliament to make the process much easier.

A tireless advocate for health care access to everyone Dr. Reddy still believes that India should follow the mandatory health insurance scheme. His innovative insurance project, introduced in his native village decades ago (rupees one a day) showed the way for various community insurance initiatives in the country.
The chronicle of his struggling & achieving life was recently translated into Tamil titled Dirgadarisi. The doctor turned entrepreneur was honoured with various national and international awards including Padma Bhushan (1991) & Padma Vibhushan (2010) by the Government of India, Asia-Pacific Bio-Business Leadership Award, Sir Neel Ratan Sarkar award etc. But Dr. Reddy still believes that he got the priceless award & honour from the families of patients who got treated in the Apollo.

By Nava Thakuria

The author is a Guwahati based journalist-columnist