“The most important subject, in the current times, is public health,” says Dr PGR Pillai, who helped lay the foundation of Kerala’s medical infrastructure. “I introduced a course on this along with eight other allied ones, at the School of Medical Education in Kottayam in 1994-95,. For every doctor, we need five support medical staff, such as nurse, lab technician, pharmaceutical expert and such. With the introduction of such courses, we could create an entire workforce to support the medical fraternity.”
As the man behind Kerala’s strong public health infrastructure, who set up nine medical college-hospitals and allied services, 80-year-old Dr. Pillai can take a bow, along with frontline health workers and stakeholders as Kerala flattens the curve of infection even as rest of the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic. “It may be something of a record because I think after setting up two (medical institutions), a person would get very tired,” he says with wry humour. Now retired and settled in Kottayam, Dr. Pillai, who graduated from the Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, in 1962 and did his Masters in General Surgery from Lucknow, is actively involved in several social projects.
Kerala’s public health infrastructure has been one of the State’s most fascinating success stories. It not only imparts a high quality of healthcare to its people, produces top-of-the-line doctors, health workers, and facilitates medical tourism to the State but has also come out in flying colours in this medical emergency.
Setting up a college
“I had been the medical superintendent of Government Medical College, for eight years when I was drafted, in 1991, to set up the medical college at Pariyaram in Kannur. Till then, the State’s medical organisation consisted of the five government colleges at Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam, Thrissur, Kozhikode, and Alappuzha. This was the first ‘non-mainstream’ hospital constructed under the cooperative sector in India. I was the founding principal and even organised requisites such as permitsfor construction,” he recalls. Now a 12-storey structure, the Pariyaram Medical College Hospital is the largest in Kerala with 1200 beds and conducts super-speciality courses along with the regular MBBS degree.
Dr Pillai’s next project as Medical Director of MG University was to found the School of Medical Education in Kottayam that provided, for the first time in India, eight under-graduate and postgraduate courses — Public Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Lab technology, Medical Radiology, Microbiology, Hospital administration, Bio-Medical Engineering, Sports Medicine and Optometry — in Allied Medical Sciences.
After this, Dr Pillai was deputed to set-up another medical college in Kochi in 2000. As founder-principal, he began work from scratch acquiring land, finalising the architectural design, recruiting the teaching staff, getting clearances from the Indian Medical Council and more. “We acquired 65 acres of land in the heart of the city. I remember getting avenue trees planted,” says Dr Pillai, proud that today the hospital is the main centre for COVID-19 patients and is fighting the pandemic.
Given Dr Pillai’s expertise in setting up college-hospitals, he was given a five-year extension when he turned 60. After a short stint with the private Jubilee Medical College in Thrissur, which he converted into a full-fledged medical college, Dr Pillai was tasked with a major project of setting up four more medical colleges in the state: at Manjeri, Kasaragod, Idukki and at Konni in Pathanamthitta. He was also involved in the setting up of Paripalli Medical College (Kollam), a new medical college at General Hospital campus Thiruvananthapuram and at Haripad.
“All the four were on government land, so land acquisition was not an issue,” says Pillai adding that the rules regarding the founding of medical colleges too had changed. “Earlier a 1200-bed hospital could come up on 100 acres and a 500-bed hospital on 50 acres. Now it has been scaled down to 300 beds on 20 acres. These rules are different for the seven metro cities, Andamans and North East region,” says Pillai.
Of the four, the college at Manjeri opened in 2013 and the Paripalli Medical College was inaugurated in 2017. Admissions have begun at the Idukki College and work is under way at Konni. But the Kasaragod Medical College Hospital is now witnessing its finest hour, even before the scheduled inauguration in September. It has opened its doors for treatment of patients with COVID-19.
Close to his heart
One of his most distinguishing works and the closest to his heart was setting up the cancer centre in the Kottayam Medical College campus. “This was unique as it is built completely on public funds,” says Dr Pillai who raised funds for the 150-bed facility along with the successive district collectors - KJ Alphonse Kannanthanam, Sheela Thomas and Sajan Peter. .
Dr Pillai is the current chairman of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Kottayam), Cancer Society and Lilly School for Disabled Students.
The journey has not been easy and Dr Pillai has had to face many troubles. “Many roadblocks and very many questions were asked. There were long hours of waiting in corridors of power to get clearances…. It’s been a Herculean task but I feel some good has been done for society. It’s a contribution to history,” says Dr Pillai adding that the look on the faces of parents and children once they get admission is unforgettable. “This has been God’s blessings, I must say.”
