INTERDEPENDENCE—A LAW OF NATURE

The humbleness, gratitude, grounding, and openness of mind to work hard, maintain discipline, and the aim to reach the sky and be as wide as the horizon to reach out to as many people as we can support are all values that are instilled in me and have shaped me into the person I am today. Please tell us about your professional life. I am an Internal Medicine Physician and also worked as an Intensivist, taking care of ICU patients. I used to manage critical cases and multiple domain cases, including Cardiac, Neuro, Respiratory, Renal, Hepatic, and Diabetes. My OPD was full of elderly patients with multiple co-morbidities, such as fever, cough, and routine infections. They consulted me, thinking I had the expertise to manage their underlying problems and current issues. So, in 2015, I completed a PG Diploma in Geriatric Medicine to better understand and treat this group of patients. India was in a budding stage of geriatric population then. Earlier, people’s lifespans used to be around 60 to 65 years, but now they are approximately 70 years, and many are living 80 to 90 years. Please provide a brief description of your NGO? I am fortunate to run an NGO named Dr Shobha Naidu Geriatric Healthcare Foundation. The need to learn about this group of elderly patients was rising. The geriatric group is interesting and different from the rest of the population because they are retired, no longer earning an active income, and depend on children or other family members for financial and emotional support. They would have become single if one spouse had passed away, and since nuclear families often lead to living alone, many of them experience insecurity, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. Therefore, not only their physical health but also their mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being, as well as their financial well-being, need to be taken care of. How does your Foundation support this age group? In a corporate setting, the less needy members could not be supported, so that’s when the Foundation was initiated with a few members who shared a similar service mindset. The Foundation takes care of the geriatric population’s physical health under the name of AGEYOUNG GERIATRIC CLINIC. Above 80 years, and people of all age groups below the poverty line who cannot afford it are offered free consultations. Investigations are discounted at less than 50%, and medicines are given free to the needy, while others