Knights In White Coats

Doctors Who Go Way Beyond The Call Of Duty—from Saving Heart Patients In Remote Areas To Giving Voice To Those Who’ve Lost It To Saving The Girl Child

HOPE IS YOUNG

Dr Sandeep Chhatwal, 48

Founder, Nanhi Jaan, Chandigarh

Project ‘Nanhi Jaan’, launched in 2011 by Dr Sandeep Chhatwal’s ‘Veeranwali Foundation’, has over the years set up a playroom, donated two ventilators, an ABG (arterial blood gas) machine, 35 baby warmers, incubators and much other material to the children’s wards of PGI and GMCH (Government Medical College and Hospital) in Chandigarh. A private practitioner for 20 years, Chhatwal became a changed man after seeing the selfless work being done at PGI Chandigarh when his son was rushed to the paediatric unit there eight years back after a case of febrile illness got complicated. “I saw how the doctors and nurses worked day and night to save him. It stunned me. I knew there and then that I owed it to do something substantial for the institution and the thousands of underprivileged children being treated in government-run hospitals,” he says. ‘Nanhi Jaan’ has benefitted more than 20,000 children till now.

—Sukant Deepak

THE ‘C’ FACTOR

Dr Priyanjali Datta, 24

Founder, Aarogya, Delhi

S he goes door to door to spread her message: that eight out of 10 women in India die of an eminently treatable scourge, breast cancer, because of late diagnosis. Just because of taboos,