Meet the team of doctors who are raising money on 'Milaap' and giving ailing kids a new lease of life

Doctors are good Samaritans by virtue of the nature of their jobs, but a few have gone beyond the confines of their job responsibility and affected several lives that could otherwise have been left unattended.

Meet Dr. Anand Subramanium, a Cardio Thoracic & Vascular Surgeon at Apollo Hospitals, Sheshadripuram in Bangalore and Dr. Sonal Asthana, Multiorgan Transplant Surgeon with work experience in leading centers in North America, UK and India.

These doctors have led their teams to not only treat their patients, but even raise money for them at times when families have been unable to pay for the treatment of their children who need immediate surgeries or transplant.

These doctors have taken to online crowdfunding website Milaap to spread awareness about critical cases and the financial help they need. Surprisingly, their requests have actually led to money flowing in. On being asked how did they think of using a crowdfunding website, Asthana narrated us a rather insightful story.

He told Business Insider – “One of the earliest transplants my team was a part of in India was that of a 7-year-old girl who had come to our hospital with acute liver failure. She required urgent transplant. Her father was a factory worker who earned Rs 7,000 a month. We managed to get organs for the liver transplant but her parents did not have the money for transplant. We had to then raise finds through public appeal and through charitable organizations. Luckily, we were able to pay for her transplant and post transplant care.”

That’s when he felt several others would be facing similar problems in the country. His team then learnt of Thanmay’s case – a 16-month-old son of a taxi driver who was suffering from a tumor in his liver and needed urgent liver transplant.

“By the time Thanmay’s case came to us, we learnt about the potential of crowd-funding. We had the target of raising Rs 15 lakh, and we managed to raise the entire amount in just 7 days through Milaap,” said Asthana.

When Asthana’s team was trying to raise money for Thanmay, they were also able to bring down the cost of the transplant (Rs 25 lakh usually) to Rs 15 lakh by requesting the hospital management to consider concession for the boy’s family.

“Because we had already raised Rs 15 lakh, and Thanmay’s surgery eventually costed us Rs 13.5 lakh, we are using the remaining money to take care of his post transplant care,” he said.

Why Asthana feels crowdfunding is really helpful in India is because – “Liver transplant costs $3,00,000 in the US. Healthcare is already cheap in India if you compare it with international standards. Even then, there are people who cannot afford the treatment. Our job doesn’t stop at telling them about the treatment, but we also have to look at ways we can help them to pay for the transplant. That’s where crowdfunding is very helpful. We have raised money for 6 children since last November.”

Here are two other successful campaigns by Sonal on Milaap – raising Rs 9,00,000 for a 15-year-old girl’s (a mechanic’s daughter) liver transplant and raising Rs 12,50,000 for a 6-year-old girl (a painter’s daughter) for urgent liver transplant.

If you’re overwhelmed reading about the noble soul of this doctor, let’s also introduce you to Dr Anand now. He has successfully raised Rs 85,000 for a daily wage labourer’s son who was diagnosed with a weak heart when he was 9 months’ old.

“Most of the patients who come to us are not from well-to-do families. A cardiac surgery for a child costs anywhere between Rs 1-2 lakh. So, in several cases, our team got the hospital management to subsidize costs without looking at profit margins. Even then we have needed additional support because patients can afford only half the amount and so we have approached people. During this process, we came across Milaap and we found it to be a good platform to arrange funds for a lot of children,” says Subramanium.

Now this good samaritan is running two campaigns on Milaap to raise money for two children who are fighting for their lives every hour.1-year-old Waris, a farmer’s son, has been diagnosed with congenital heart disease and needs to undergo an open heart surgery. The second kid is 8-month-old Piyush, a street vendor’s son, who suffers from congenital cyanotic heart disease and needs urgent corrective surgery.

Good news is in both cases, Subramanium seems to be going strong because he has already raised Rs 1,60,000 for Waris (out of Rs 1,90,600) and Rs 1,60,000 (out of Rs 2,26,162) for Piyush.

It’s difficult to believe there are such noble doctors in our country who are reaching out to people for helping their patients. What’s even more beautiful is their requests are not falling on deaf ears. Their efforts along with Milaap have proven this world is not such a bad place to live in. Humanity still exists.