Meet the centenarian medical superintendent of Madurai corporation

Meet the centenarian medical superintendent of Madurai corporation

Padmini.Sivarajah@timesgroup.com

27.04.2021

The first woman medical superintendent of the Madurai corporation, Dr R S Padmavathy, turned 100 on Monday. Her entry to the medical field shattered preconceived notions about women and helped more women to come forward to seek medical consultation.

Born on April 26, 1921, Padmavathy was the eldest daughter of a government doctor at the Erskine Hospital, the present-day Government Rajaji Hospital. A woman becoming a professional, more so a doctor was unheard of in her community — the Rajus. It was her father Dr R Sundarajan’s vision that helped her break barriers, not just for herself, but for all his women patients. Dr Sundarajan realised that women were apprehensive of consulting male doctors and were losing their lives. He decided to make his first born, Padmavathy, a doctor.

After completing her intermediate studies at the American College in Madurai, she went to study medicine at the Madras Medical College. Facing up to community pressure with her books being thrown or hidden by elders, she later inspired five of her sisters to follow in her footsteps. After graduating in 1948, Dr Padmavathy was appointed as a government doctor in Kodaikanal. A year later, she felt the women in Madurai needed her service more. That’s when her father made her quit her government job and join the Madurai municipality as a doctor. The municipality had three women doctors then, the others were from other states, she was the only one from southern Tamil Nadu who knew the region.

She was promoted as the medical superintendent of maternity centres, in the Madurai municipality in 1955, and held the same post till her retirement in 1977. Those were the days when institutionalized delivery wasn’t common. To make childbirth as safe as possible at home, Dr Padmavathy implemented the system where the corporation staff followed up on cases regularly and assisted deliveries at homes.

In 1969, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) conducted an advanced training in maternity and childcare at Warsaw, Poland, Dr Padmavathy was one of the three doctors chosen by the Indian government to attend it. Returning with a hoard of information, she implemented vacuum assisted deliveries in the Madurai corporation. Sign boards and placards were made to adorn the walls of her clinic to inspire young doctors who came there for training.

It was her vision that child healthcare became an important part of the maternity system, which led to the two being integrated in the medical system in hospitals. Carrying forward her legacy, one of her three sons Gurusundar and daughter Geethalakshmi are doctors.

PIONEERING SPIRIT: Dr R S Padmavathy, was instrumental in giving shape to child care and maternity healthcare in the 1960s and 70s; (above, fourth from left) at a health conference in Warsaw, Poland, representing India in 1969