Mail News Service
Jamshedpur, August 23: Dr. Nagendra Singh has been working for the last 31 years as the Messiah of the poor, bereft of much deserved publicity. In fact, neither the state or central government has taken notice of his philanthropic mission on the ideals of his mother who had once toild him while he was in Baharagora, never to charge patients who could not afford the cost of treatment or accept whatever they could give him willingly. Dr Singh has lived up to his mother’s wish and is a dedicated follower verbatim of Hippocrates’ Oath that he took when he stepped out into the world to alleviate the pains of a suffering mankind. However, continues to provide free treatment to the needy.
Dr. Nagendra Singh has seen poverty from very close quarters; his father died due to lack of treatment because financial constraints. Following the ideal of his mother, he treats the needy free of cost. He started off 31 years ago taking up his assignment Baharagora Block where communication was a major hurdle.
Dr. Singh often had to cross the swollen Swarnrekha river by boat and had to walk on sand and reach Ghorabandha. He also had to traverse or wade across muddy rural roads to treat villagers. Seeing the situation there, Dr. Singh was distressed, because there he saw that even after 44 years of independence (31 years before today in the year 1990), there were many villages lacking medical facilities while many villagers faced financial crunch. He felt that inhuman living status and conditions prevailed in the rural belt of Baharagora Block.
“Superstition was at its peak among the villagers. For treatment, the people of the village depended on exorcism performed by an exorcist and one can say that in the absence of all the treatment facilities, they would end up dying,” Dr Singh recalled.
It was during this phase that Dr. Nagendra Singh reached Baharagora and took up spreading awareness among the people against superstition and related practices. He gave new life to thousands of villagers by treating and operating upon them and instilled faith in their hearts. This trend continued for years.
Gradually the villagers saw the light and Dr. Singh gave new lease of life to the poor and helpless tribal people by saving them from the clutches of untimely death by drawing them away from their prejudiced and superstitious beliefs.
In 2020’s COVID-19 run, the unique quality of Dr Nagendra Singh came to the fore. Bandini (29), wife of Hari, a rickshaw puller from Purulia, was suffering due to acute stomach pain and when she was examined, the medic discovered that her appendix had burst and immediate surgery was the only panacea. Dr. Singh operated on her free of cost at Ganga Memorial Hospital and saved her life. The patient was also sent to her Purulia home by an ambulance. It may be pointed out that before knocking on Ganga Memorial Hospital’s door, her hapless husband had taken her to the government hospital where she was refused treatment. Dr Nagendra Singh’s tales of his humanitarian heart are aplenty and might require volumes of thickset note books to record.
Dr. Singh has his own Ganga Memorial Hospital in Mango Dimna Road, where even today many needy people are treated free of cost as a reflection of the spirit of service. Besides medical care, Dr Nagendra Singh is known to assist many patients financially to aid their recovery. He is a tall example of living by the Hippocrates’ Oath.
