When some give, they prefer to do it anonymously. A couple called on authorities of the Government Medical College and ESI Hospital, Coimbatore, on Tuesday and offered to donate fans for the COVID-19 wards. But they wanted do so without any publicity.
Hospital Dean M. Raveendran thought they wanted to give a few fans. When he stepped out of his office, escorted by the couple, he found 100 new pedestal fans lined up in the corridor.
The couple then made another surprising revelation: they had pledged their jewellery for ₹2.2 lakh to buy the fans, as they could not pool in the required sum quickly. “We initially thought they would give just a few. We were pleasantly surprised to see 100. They requested not to reveal their identity,” Dr. Raveendran said.
The decision to present one hundred fans came after a Tamil daily carried a report on Tuesday, stating that fans could be donated to the COVID-19 wards as the hospital administration was unable to operate the central air-conditioning. A local FM station also highlighted the requirement in its morning programme.
“We got 300 fans from the government for the COVID-19 wards. But the number of patients under care was more than double. There were 720 patients as of Wednesday,” the Dean said.
Medical Superintendent T. Ravikumar said the couple had come to the hospital for COVID-19 vaccination and took an immediate decision to enable much-needed ventilation after coming to know of the requirement.
“When we saw they had pledged their jewellery, we insisted that they limit the donation to five or 10 fans and return the rest to the shop. But they requested us to accept all of them. A final call was taken after getting the consent of the Collector, who asked us to honour the couple for their humanitarian gesture,” he said.
When contacted, the couple did not wish to comment.