18-05-2020
Kollam doctor distributes insurance coverage to the needy
Insurance AlertssKollam doctor distributes insurance coverage to the needy
KOCHI: To help the needy who are potentially exposed to Covid-19, a diabetologist from Chavara, near Kollam district, has purchased and distributed more than 500 policies to those underprivileged contract workers in the healthcare space.
Through the SoftBank-backed True Balance app, Dr. Manoharan Shanmugam bought ICICI Lombard’s Covid-19 policies for more than 500 people in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, by spending Rs 80,000 from his pocket. He further helped a senior official with the Southern Railways in Chennai, to register another batch of 600+ contract workers from Chennai and Puducherry.
“I had distributed the policies free to the staff of my hospital in Chavara and also insured the staff from the three hospitals of my friends – two in Kollam and one in Thiruvananthapuram. Then, I insured contract workers from Tamil Nadu also. Altogether I have insured more than 500 people, completely free of cost, till now,” Dr Manoharan said.
When came to know about the work of Manoharan, his friend, Ilangovan Geetha, Additional Divisional Railway Manager with the Southern Railways, asked him to insure people from Chennai and Pondicherry. “He wanted to insure the contract sanitary workers with the railways - eighty percent being women – against Covid-19. He paid the money and sent me the details of these people and I helped him register them through the app. I spent nearly 10 days for the whole exercise and had been typing in the details of 100-120 people per day,” Dr Manoharan said.
A native of Thirunelveli, Dr Manoharan had set up help desk for students who were coming to Kerala to appear for NEET exam. “Two years ago, students and their parents found it difficult to find the exact location of the exam centre and also to find accommodation nearby. As a native of Tamil Nadu, I understood the trouble they had been undergoing and set up the help desk for them. Later governmental agencies set up similar systems,” he said.
Source: The Times of India
