Kerala: 'Sneha Sparsham' coms to aid of patients struggling to make ends meet

Sneha Sparsham is a project run by district panchayat. Lesly Joseph highlights
Representatives of the Sneha Sparsham project interacting with kidney patients.
Representatives of the Sneha Sparsham project interacting with kidney patients.

KOZHIKODE: Rajesh Kumar, a 48-year-old liver transplant patient from West Hill here, has to spend Rs 15,000 monthly on his treatment. In addition to paying the huge hospital bills, he needs prohibitively expensive life-saving drugs. 

For Rajesh and numerous others like him, Sneha Sparsham -- an innovative project conceived by the district panchayat -- provides a lifeline.

When Sneha Sparsham was launched in 2012, it was meant to cater to dialysis patients, a majority of whom living within the corporation limits. And around Rs 4-5 lakh raised through crowdfunding was spent on the project every month.

The initiative has grown to a stage where over Rs 15 lakh is spent on drugs for liver and kidney transplant patients as well as on footing the associated expenses. Going a step further, the drugs will now be delivered at the doorstep of the beneficiaries in view of the difficulties encountered by them in collecting medicines from the district panchayat office. Rajesh, who underwent a liver transplant in February 2013,  said any financial help is immense for people like him, an auto electrical worker, struggling to make ends meet. “For the past three months, I have been receiving free medicines worth Rs 2,500-5,000,” he said. 

Babu Parassery, president, Kozhikode district panchayat, said, “Sneha Sparsham is involved in a host of activities like providing financial assistance for AIDS patients to meet their food, accommodation and medical expenses, free medicines for liver and kidney transplant patients, support for dialysis patients and running Nava Jeevan mental health clinics for rural folk. We are now providing financial help to 1,400 dialysis patients, free medicines to 400 kidney transplant patients, and 30 liver transplant patients. Around Rs 4 crore is spent on the project every year.”

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