The clinic is open between 7.30pm and 9pm every Tuesday and Thursday and handles 70 to 80 cases on each of those nights. It currently has more than 50 volunteer medical specialists.
Apart from conventional medical treatment, it offers what one volunteer calls “universal energy healing” and is expanding to include traditional Chinese and Indian treatments.
It is recognised by conventional hospitals. The Penang Hospital, for example, takes up cases referred to it by the volunteer specialists.
According to one of its founders, consultant paediatrician S Sellappan, the clinic has seen many serious cases over the years, including children with leukaemia and brain tumour.
He recalled a case of a two-year-old girl who suffered burns on 80% of her body. “We raised RM80,000 for private care, skin grafts and plastic surgery,” he told FMT. “We treated her for about 10 years. She was eventually able to go to school.”
Sellappan said he decided on starting a free clinic after he finished his specialist training in Britain in 1996.
“To run a free clinic, I needed extra hands to dispense medicine,” he said. “So I roped in P Murugiah, who was doing social work to help the poor in Penang, and also another doctor.”
In late 2000, the clinic began operating under the auspices of the Penang Temple of Fine Arts and moved to Jalan Sungai, where many poor families live.
Sellappan, who is active as well in other charity work such as education for underprivileged Indian children and orphans, said doctors offered more than medical treatment at the clinic.
“We give advice on lifestyle and diet changes. As a paediatrician, I advise parents on child upbringing.”
Heart specialist Rajesh P Shah, who volunteers once or twice a month, said the clinic gave the poor the chance to see specialists, a chance they might never have had because of the expense.
Volunteer doctors at the clinic typically treat simple ailments and check their patients’ general health conditions.
“We pick up symptoms that may be dangerous to the patients,” said Rajesh. “We guide them along and write referrals so they can quickly seek proper treatment at hospitals.”
The specialists also play the “supplementary role” of interpreting medical reports for their patients. “In hospitals, they are sometimes lost in a sea of people and doctors,” Rajesh said. “They find it hard to understand their conditions and the treatments they need. So they bring us their reports and the pills dispensed for them so we can explain these to them.”
Waiting list
Many doctors are keen to volunteer and they are put on a “waiting list”, according to Murugiah, who coordinates the clinic’s operations. He quipped that some would “gate crash” into a session if he had not called them for some time.
“They are excited about serving the community. At the hospitals, they don’t have much time to talk to patients, but here they do. Some give their services free. Some take up the cases we refer to them and help get the patients free treatment or charge a minimal fee.”
But medical aid is not the only free service offered at Derma Sivasanta. There are seven volunteer lawyers providing legal aid, mostly for housing and welfare problems.
Furthermore, the clinic every month gives a number of wheelchairs to the needy and rations of rice, milk, spices and cooking oil to poor and struggling single-parent families.
Murugiah said some people just needed someone to talk to. “They just need a hand on their shoulders, a kind voice asking how they are doing. So we listen to their troubles. It makes a difference. You can see the relief on their faces.”
Murugiah himself went through hard times as a teenager and was inspired to help others by the late Hindu spiritual teacher Swami Shantanand Saraswathi, who founded the Penang Temple of Fine Arts.
The clinic’s monthly running cost is about RM5,000. Public donations are used in helping poor patients get treatment at hospitals and to pay for medicines and the clinic’s upkeep. Would-be donors can get more information at the “Klinik Derma Sivasanta” Facebook page.