The Vol­untary Health Ser­vices hos­pital in Chen­nai received sup­port from the Indian sub­sidi­ary of the AUMUND Group of com­pan­ies for the first time in 2021, as emer­gency aid dur­ing the Covid pan­demic, and dona­tions were later provided for the chil­dren’s ward. The hos­pital was foun­ded back in the late 1950s with the aim of provid­ing first-class spe­cial­ist health care for less for­tunate sec­tions of the pop­ula­tion. This is still the object­ive today, as con­firmed by the dir­ector of the hos­pital and his team dur­ing our visit in March 2023. The hos­pital’s mis­sion state­ment con­firms, “Our team at VHS are fully com­mit­ted to ful­filling the cri­teria of access­ibil­ity, afford­abil­ity and avail­abil­ity.”

Dur­ing our second visit in Novem­ber 2024, we were again accom­pan­ied by our Indian con­sult­ant, Prasad Rao, who reg­ularly vis­its the clinic to gain firsthand insight into the work being done there and main­tains close con­tact with the rel­evant stake­hold­ers. The focus of the visit was a com­pre­hens­ive tour of the clinic and an explor­ation of fund­ing oppor­tun­ities bey­ond the award­ing of schol­arships. The clinic dir­ector par­tic­ularly lamen­ted the dilap­idated state of the out­patient depart­ment, which was in dire need of renov­ation and no longer adequately met the needs of the patients.

Start­ing in 2026, the Aumund Found­ation will exclus­ively fund the renov­ation of the out­patient depart­ment, thus provid­ing the clinic with a com­fort­able wait­ing area and mod­ern exam­ina­tion rooms for the care of the many emer­gency patients it treats daily.