There are many ways you could take part in the medical mission at Vellore.
Ida Scudder Centenary Endowment Fund for High Technology treatment of the disadvantaged.
Almost the total amount of money collected and sent from Australia is earmarked for this Endowment Fund. It was envisaged during the Centenary celebrations in 2002, a fund with a reserve of Rs. 10 Crores (A$ 2,858,572) would be established. The aim was to use a portion of the interest to provide grants for economically needy patients requiring expensive operations. The fund provides up to INR 100,000 per patient. During the year 2010/11, a total of Rs. 11,20,000 was granted to 17 patients under this scheme. Since the fund was established in 1996/97, we have donated a total of A$1,086,029 towards it. At present, the fund’s balance is Rs. 7.20 Crores.
Person to Person Programme (PTP)
This programme encourages donors to fund the hospitalisation of individual poor patients on a one to one basis. Last year a total of 4222 patients were assisted through this scheme. If you or a group you belong to wish to provide free or subsidised care for patients who has a potentially curable illness but who can not pay for the hospitalisation and treatment, we invite you send a contribution of 80 Australian Dollars to the PTP scheme. You will subsequently, receive information of the particular person who benefited from your donation.
Designated Donations
We are often approached by friends and or alumni of CMC who wish to donate for a specific cause in relation to the activities at Vellore. The Oncology department at Vellore was originally established by such a donation by alumni belonging to a particular class. Some have donated for specific equipments or building a ward for a clinical department and even for conducting Continuing Medical Education Seminars at CMC in their field of interest. Recently, the bequest of late Reg Walker donated a sum towards educating a medical student in need at CMC.
General Donations
About 76% of the beds in the main hospital are in general wards where the cost of the care is subsidised by CMC. In fact 10 – 15% of all patients admitted to CMC Hospital are treated completely free, while many others are granted significant reductions in their bills. This year ( 2010 / 2011), the medical costs underwritten for the poor totaled nearly 13,149,744 Australian Dollars. CMC is working towards a goal of devoting 30% of annual hospital income for free care. We invite you to join us in working to reach this goal.
Special Requests by the Director
From time to time, the Director of CMC requests us to allocate a certain proportion of our contribution for a specific purpose which needs to be financed in the immediate future. These are usually one off requests and the Board tries to accommodate the wishes of the Director. Recently, we contributed towards the ‘Oncology Fund’ which urgently needed some extra funding and also towards the building of a retreat centre for the Staff and Students, which in fact was originally started by funds from Australia but was put in the back burner for years. This facility has become a great asset for the hard working staff in the campus.