Medicos in the city took an altogether different role on Wednesday. In a novel initiative, a group of doctors from various hospitals in the city turned the Government General Hospital into a music therapy lab by singing melodies to the patients.
A first of its kind initiative, the ‘Doctors Singing for Patients’ programme was organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) as part of its Arts and Medicine project in association with the the cultural wing of the Indian Medical Association (IMA). Hundreds of people, including patients, bystanders, medical students and staff at the hospital turned up at the programme venue inside the hospital campus to attend the musical treat.
Dr Venugopal, Dr Junaid Rahman, Dr Rani Vinod, Dr Mohan George Madhavamangalam, Dr Cia Moideen, Dr G N Ramesh,Dr Balamuralikrishna, Dr Manoj Kusra and Dr Jayachandran took part in the programme. “As far as the IMA is concerned, this novel initiative is a new step forward,” said IMA Cochin chapter president Babu John Mathews. The doctors sang some enticing melodies from popular Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam films.
“Programmes like this will help to change the society’s negative, often hostile perception towards hospitals,” IMA cultural-wing state chairperson Dr T N Chandrika said. “I am an ardent lover of art and wish to do my part to promote it,” said Dr Chandrika, who is also a classical dance exponent.“Hospitals must give more thrust to music therapy, as this has the potential to bring in drastic improvement to patients’ mental health. I hope such programmes will help the patients lessen the intensity of their sufferings,” said Dr M Venugopal, chairman of IMA’s cultural wing Cochin chapter.
The programme was the eleventh in the series of such programmes being conducted by the Biennale Foundation under Iva Fattorini, Chair of Global Arts and Medicine Institute, Cleveland Clinic and Ernakulam district administration. Mehboob Memorial Orchestra has been giving musical support to the programme.
“The main goal of the project has been accomplished after this programme by the doctors. Without doctors’ participation, the programme would have been left incomplete,” said KBF research coordinator Bonny Thomas.