The 'Messiah' for the poor

Dr Noori Parveen is a native of Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh. She comes from a social service-oriented family and no doubt, what has been her inspiration for doing the service. She is titled is the 'Mother Theresa of Kadapa'.

Her grandfather, Noor Mohammed was a communist party leader in the 1980s. She could not see her grandfather as he passed away in 1986 and Noori Parveen was born in 1992. Being heard of his service, she was always inspired to do something for the people from a very young age. Her father was also into social service. She always preferred motivational movies.

Dr Noori shares, "My dream since the time I was in class 2, was to become a doctor. In all the skits and plays, I would get the role to become a doctor. Since class 1st till my MBBS, I have always been the class representative so I always had the leadership qualities within myself. In movies, I always saw doctors helping the poor. In movies, poor always treated doctors as a god and I always had this wish to do social service and help the poor and the unprivileged people."

She has always been a combination of the jovial, straightforward and the naughty kid of her class. She never had any kind of stage fear and always loved to be on the stage.

After her MBBS, she wanted to do her PG but a sudden thought that popped in her mind changed her life. She did not want to be the same like other doctors who had the same routine.

She adds, "I had a thought of what about my goals, motive of my life and the social service that I have always wanted to do. I immediately searched for a place in Kadapa where people of Low socio-economic group of people lived. The main motive of this Rs 10 service was to help the unprivileged people. The service would not be as effective in the middle class or posh areas as in the areas were the lower socio-economic people resided. Few peoples were supportive for the service while some were like now how will this service work-out."

Since her childhood, she has always been a positive person and was already ready for what people thought they cannot do. Since she was always a chill-out happy-go lucky girl, her family always told her that doing a MBBS is a huge thing and she has to study a lot and do a lot of hard work. However, she always wanted to become a doctor and stood by her decision.

"In my 2nd year of MBBS, I organized a student organization, where we used to take our pocket moneys and visited to orphanages and old-age homes. I always used to motivate my friends and juniors saying that we are in a field where we can help and do service for the people who are in need," says the happy go-lucky doctor.

According to her, as a doctor, one treats and earn money for themselves which cannot be called as a service. This was one of the reasons that made her start this Rs 10 OP service.

She adds, "People from lower middle class cannot visit the corporate hospitals due to the fees and in government hospitals not all the services are provided. These people then visit to unqualified doctors who are not qualified in the field as they charge less fee and give 3 or 4 medicined and spoil their own health. I want to provide a help and give back to the society. This initiative has completed a year now. This initiative was started on February 7, 2020 and I am very happy and overwhelmed to see the success of this initiative."

She charges only Rs 10 for outpatients and Rs 50 for those in need of bed. Her clinic is a 3 bedded clinic, where after the outbreak of the pandemic more than 100 patients visits her clinic.

The negativity into positivity through her service

She shares, "Earlier when few people visited the clinic, they used to think that we are charging just Rs 10 and writing medicines of around 300. It is not the same in other hospitals, the consultation fees just start from 400 and they ask one to but medicines for more than Rs 1000. However, later these people themselves used to come another time and also recommend other people to visit the clinic. The amount that I get from medical, it goes on for rent, medicines, salary of the nurses and the rest."

The pandemic dint affect her joy for helping the poor

During the pandemic, all the clinics were asked to be closed and she went to a COVID center hospital. Coincidentally, which was her college FIMS itself that was a COVID center and she voluntarily served the positive infected patients. She adds, "After a couple of days I started getting calls of the patients and I choose to open my clinic again. If a person had minor fever and cold, they were also not getting any sort of treatment. I then opened the clinic for 24 hours. During this time, doctors charged even more and for a minor symptom they asked people to do various tests which the poor could not afford. With my staff, I provided all the services. When people had a normal cold and cough, I used to treat them. However, the ones who were infected were sent to the nearby hospitals."

She also received other services like ortho, gynae, neuro. For patients with these services, she used to call doctors if the treatment could be done over the call and treat the patients making them sit in front of her. If the patients had anything serious, they were recommended to the specialist.

Re-calling one of the cases that she received during the pandemic, she said, "There was a Neuro case I treated once, when a 65-year-old came to me. He needed the support of his children to walk. I was a bit scared if I could treat him. However, after exactly a month, he returned walking on his own two feet. He asked me if I remembered him and thanked me profusely. Handling that case really made me very happy."