Author: Fakir Hassen, Indo-Asian
News Service
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: December 24, 2002
URL: http://in.news.yahoo.com/021224/43/1zg61.html
Around 1,000 mourners, including
the national health minister, paid their last respects here to a pioneering
South African Indian doctor who served as a role model to hundreds of students.
Professor Soromini Kallichurum,
who died at the age of 71, was the first woman and the first black person
to become the dean of the faculty of the Natal Medical School where she
herself qualified as a doctor in 1957.
"In fact, she was the first woman
to be appointed head of a clinical department at any medical school in
South Africa," said Ronnie Green-Thompson, superintendent-general of the
health ministry in KwaZulu Natal province.
"She broke down barriers in many
areas that were considered to be the stronghold of men and did such a great
job that she was appointed for a second term."
Kallichurum was also the first woman
to serve as a member of the Medical Research Council, and after the advent
of democracy, became the first president of the Health Professions Council
of South Africa that succeeded the former white-dominated regulatory body
for the fraternity.
For many students who passed through
the hands of the internationally respected pathologist, Kallichurum will
be remembered for her stern yet motherly approach.
Known to many as "The Granite Woman"
because of her often unemotional approach to problems, many former students
attended her funeral service.
One of them, now a neurosurgeon
here, spoke of her "fearless protection" of students who took up the struggle
against racial discrimination at the university, which was forced by apartheid
legislation to take in a limited number of Indian students on a quota system.
This resulted in many not being
able to fulfil their dreams of becoming doctors, even when they had good
grades in their final year at school.
"She even took on the university
authorities when they tried to act against students, if she was convinced
that the students were right. There was no compromising with Kallichurum
when it came to ethical behaviour."
