THRISSUR: Adversities often make people open their eyes to the struggles of fellow humans. Such is the case with 47-year-old Sakhymon TI. Though adversities came at him one after the other in the form of failed business and life-threatening accidents, they served to help him realise the struggles of others.
A scary accident in 2008 had left Sakhymon with grave injuries to his head, in six places. Doctors had said he would require several surgeries. But he recovered quickly. "After a battery of tests, they declared me healthy. I didn’t have to undergo a surgery," recalls Sakhymon, who saw it as a blessing. "I wanted to do something in return to thank god."
Having been doing social service at the Thrissur Medical College Hospital since 2000, Sakhymon had come face to face with the trials and tribulations of the patients seeking treatment for various illnesses. "I found dialysis patients from financially backward families struggled the most to meet treatment costs. Unlike other diseases, dialysis is a continuous process and requires funding regularly. Shelling out Rs 2,000 per dialysis is impossible for many," he says.
Sakhymon started by paying Rs 2,000 for the dialysis of a patient. On hearing about his gesture, many people began approaching him for help. "Initially, I used to cough up the money. But later it became tough and I thought of getting sponsors," he says.
That was the start of a novel endeavour, which saw two other like-minded people - Stanly Cheeran and Lonappan TA - joining him in 2012. He says the process of connecting patients with sponsors makes their endeavour transparent and effective. "We have around 40 patients with more than 120 people sponsoring them," Sakhymon says.
His team follows a strict screening process. "We don't want the sponsors to be taken for a ride. When a patient approaches us, we ask them to submit their details attested by the doctor treating them in a prescribed form along with five full-sized photographs," he says.
Molci Kurien, a sponsor and an officer with BSNL, had this to say about him: "Sakhymon is doing good work without expecting anything in return. This takes a lot of patience and sincerity." In between, Sakhymon survived another accident that saw him falling 35ft from the roof of a church. Unmindful of personal hardship, he continues to serve the poor.