She has enough marks in the higher secondary exams to join medicine but her mother is not in a position to pay for the course.
P. Prema (18), daughter of a daily wager who lives in a tiled roof house in Erumapatty, has a cut-off score of 198 out of 200 and aspires to become a cardiologist to serve the needy.
“Heart diseases are on the rise and persons belonging to financially-backward families are not exempted. They are unable to get treatment because they don’t have money and I want to serve them”, she said.
She scored 1,168 marks (97.33 percent) in the Class XII board exams this year – Maths (199), Biology (199), Chemistry (198), Physics (196), Tamil (193) and English (183).
But this girl from Scheduled Caste (Arunthathiyar) community needs some assistance to pursue higher education and realising her dream of helping the needy. .
Her mother P. Jothimani (38) is a daily wager who earns about Rs. 2,000 a month.
Prema’s father – a conductor in the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation - abandoned his family when she was a child.
Since then, she and her sister have been living with her mother’s parents in a tiled house at Erumapatty.
Reason behind decision
She was in Class XI when she went to a private hospital in Namakkal where she saw relatives of poor patients in tears and struggling to raise money by selling their belongings to save their dear ones.
“It was then I decided to become a doctor and I knew that getting high marks was the only way to become a doctor. I have heard about much about Madras Medical College and want to wear the white coat there”, she said.
She studied in Barathi Higher Secondary School, a government aided school on the Thuraiyur Road near Namakkal Town, from Standard I to Plus Two.
She was determined to pursue MBBS and prepared well for the Class X board exams, though family circumstances always worried her.
“I scored 483 out of 500 (96.6 percent) in the SSLC in 2011,” she said. She was among few students who got a free seat in the same school. Free hostel accommodation helped her concentrate on her studies.
Though she studied in Tamil medium from Classes I to XII, she is confident that she will be able to pursue MBBS in English medium. “A friend of mine who studied in a matriculation school till Class X taught me how to communicate in English.”
Help needed
The Indian Medical Association (Namakkal) has given her Rs. 15,000 as its contribution. But she needs a lot more money to pay tuition and hostel fees.
Interested persons can contact her on her mother’s mobile number 9600751696.
