A group of students of MKCG medical college and hospital in Berhampur have come together to form a group to provide support and assistance to poor and destitute patients.
They have named their group Server of Care and Happiness (SOCH). It came into being in February 2014. Members of this group contribute from their pocket every month and the money thus collected is spent on medicines and treatment of extremely needy poor patients.
According to M. Acharya, a member, they had started with just 20 members from 2011-2016 batch. With time students from other batches were also included in the project.
These students started with small contributions of Rs.20 per student per month. They were free to contribute more. As the number of members of SOCH has increased, they are now collecting around Rs.8,000 every month. To maintain transparency in accounting, the list of contributors to SOCH is maintained and displayed every month.
Till now, SOCH has borne cost of treatment of around 20 extremely poor patients.
The idea of SOCH had come to the minds of these medical college students after the Phailin cyclone when several injured patients with not much money in hand got admitted to the medical college hospital.
