Shashi Tharoor MP along with Ajit Ronald Gurubachan Singh, who won the Monsignor Mathew Muringathery Memorial National level Health Care and Missionary Award at a function organised by Jthe ubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute, Thrissur, on Saturday.
| Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Kerala’s globally admired health care model owes as much to the Christian missionary hospitals as to the progressive State policies, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said, stressing that these institutions continue to embody compassion, accessibility, and ethics in an era increasingly driven by profit.
He was delivering the Dr. H. S. Adenwalla Memorial Oration on “Missionary Concept in Health care in the Era of Corporate Presence” during ‘Pelecanus 2025,’ organised by Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute, Thrissur, on Saturday.
“In Kerala, the Catholic Church’s role in health care is not just history — it’s an evolving mission,” Mr. Tharoor said.
Citing the contributions of the Christian medical institutions, Mr. Tharoor said they remain “pillars of public health,” combining clinical excellence with a deep sense of service. “Kerala has over 35 nursing colleges and dozens of hospitals run by Christian institutions. They pioneered nursing education for women and reached out to tribal and coastal communities long before government health systems took root,” he noted.
He praised Dr. Adenwalla, who rejected lucrative offers abroad to serve the poor at Jubilee Mission Hospital, arriving there in 1959 when it was still a small dispensary.
Tracing the hospital’s evolution from its founding in 1951 by Fr. Mathew Muringathery to a 1,500-bed multi-specialty institution, Mr. Tharoor described it as “the poor man’s hospital that never turned anyone away.”
However, he warned that health care today stands at a crossroads.
“Artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostics and robotic surgeries are astonishing achievements,” he said, “but for ordinary citizens, the deepest wound is not the disease itself — it’s the cost. Corporate hospitals often prioritise revenue over recovery. When the accounts department becomes more powerful than the medical department, something vital is lost.”
Mr. Tharoor urged for a balance between corporate efficiency and missionary compassion. “The challenge is not to reject corporate participation, but to ensure that their resources serve equity as well as excellence,” he said.
Monsignor Mathew Muringathery Memorial National level Health care and Missionary Award was presented to Ajit Ronald Gurubachan Singh , who actively involved in community vaccination programmes, TB eradication efforts and healthcare services in Odisha and Chhattisgarh, at the function.
Published – October 04, 2025 08:55 pm IST
