Rourkela: Instances of charity are common, but it is rare to come across a person who has donated his entire life’s savings to a cause. Meet 86-year-old Dr Satikanta Ghosh, a surgery specialist from Rourkela, who has donated property and assets worth Rs 3 crore that he had accumulated over a period of 39 years for setting up a cancer hospital.
“I have to leave this mortal world one day or the other. But I hope my small effort would bring back the smiles of a poor cancer patient even when I won’t be around,” the elderly doctor says.
Ghosh offered his two-storied building, constructed on a 25-decimal plot of land in the heart of the city, and cash of Rs 5 lakh to Bharat Seva Sangh, a charity organisation, for the setting up of a cancer hospital. The proposed hospital, which would be named Puspanjali Cancer Foundation, would be established on a three-acre land at Gopapali in Vedabyas while Ghosh’s building would be used as an office.
Ghosh said he bought the land and built a two-storied house through his earnings as a doctor and with the help of his late wife Bina Ghosh, who was also a doctor. Having donated the building to the Sangh, Ghosh now spends the twilight years of his life in two rooms of the building with his daughter. He still sees patients at a nearby private hospital free of charge.
A native of Cuttack, Ghosh began his career as a physician at Ispat General Hospital (IGH) in 1967 after obtaining a degree in surgery from England. He later joined Mission Hospital at Nuagaon in 1969. However, he received major setbacks in his later life. Bina, who too was an anesthetist at IGH, passed away in 1991 while his son Subrakanta, an orthopaedic surgeon, died in a road accident in 2005. The personal losses however strengthened his resolve to give back to society.
Ghosh said he was inspired to help set up a cancer hospital after witnessing the hardships of cancer victims and their families. He then vowed to set up a foundation with the money he and his wife had earned over their careers.
Ghosh first contacted Kolkata-based Ramakrushna Mission to take his dream forward but it didn’t yield much result. However, Bharat Seva Sangh, another Kolkata-based organization, evinced interest and came forward to set up the hospital.
The hospital would mostly serve patients who cannot afford expensive cancer treatment, Ghosh said. PNN