It was not just about making cancer treatment affordable, but giving quality care with dignity to all patients, says Dr Sudeep Gupta, Director with Tata Memorial Centre, of his two interactions this year with corporate doyen and philanthropist, late Ratan Tata.
“His signature is not just about doling out help. It was about care given with love, compassion and dignity,” Gupta told businessline, of his takeaways from the hour-long meetings with Ratan Tata.
A “great listener,” Tata wanted to understand the state of cancer care and research in the country and what needed to be done, besides wanting to understand the work being done on indigenous systems of medicine and how it could be systematically researched and integrated into treatment, says Gupta.
When the TMC head laid out the need in 20 years, for trained human resources for the infrastructure that is being built, Tata pointed to him, it was not just quality doctors, but other individuals - including nurses, technical staff, therapists and so on - who need training to have a high level of competence to provide high quality care in future.
TMC is under the Central government’s Department of Atomic Energy, started by the House of Tata’s in 1941 and handed over to DAE in 1962, says Gupta. There are about 11 hospitals across seven States, including two that are being built, he said.
The discussion with Tata was also about coordinating between TMC’s hospitals and Tata Trust-run hospitals, to get affordable and quality cancer treatment across to more people, across geographies, Dr Gupta said. Though TMC is now entirely under the DAE, there is a close association with the Tata’s, he said, referring to two hospitals in Varanasi that were built / renovated and handed over to TMC to run, for the last five years now, he said.
Healthcare bridges
Tata also took to personally investing in building bridges of a different kind, when he invested in fledgling ventures like “GoodFellows” (2022) and “Generic Aadhaar” (2020).
He funded Arjun Deshpande (who was then 18 years old), his first funds for the pharmaceutical venture Generic Aadhaar. The advice he got from “Ratan Sir” was to focus on cancer medicines and keep the price of drugs down for cancer patients, Deshpande had then told the correspondent.
In the age of increasing loneliness among the elderly, Ratan Tata-backed another initiative – Goodfellows - looking to build a bridge of “intergenerational friendship”.
“About 15 million elderly people in the country live alone and the loneliness leads to deteriorating mental and physical health,” the initiative’s founder Shantanu Naidu, General Manager at the office of Tata, had then told the correspondent.
Healthcare insiders point to Tata’s continued legacy to science and research, while keeping the central theme of quality and dignity. A commitment they hope will continue through Tata’s healthcare ventures.