M R Rajagopal

Founder

M R Rajagopal is the founder of Pallium India (2003)[1], an Indian non-profit working on palliative & cancer care and healthcare from Thiruvananthapuram.

Dr M. R. Rajagopal, born on 23 September 1947 in Trivandrum, Kerala, is an Indian anaesthesiologist and palliative care physician who is often described as the father of palliative care in India. He is the founder and chairman of Pallium India, a charitable trust established in 2003 that provides palliative care free of charge and campaigns for its integration into the Indian health system.

He has been a central figure in improving access to opioid pain relief in India and in developing palliative care training and services in Kerala and beyond.

Early life and education

Rajagopal was born in Trivandrum in 1947. He trained in medicine at Medical College, Trivandrum, and Medical College, Calicut, and specialised in anaesthesiology before moving into palliative medicine.

Career

Rajagopal co-founded the Pain and Palliative Care Society at Medical College, Calicut, in 1993, and has worked in palliative care since 1994. In 2003 he established Pallium India as a charitable trust in Thiruvananthapuram, and in 2006 he set up the Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences, which the World Health Organization designated a Collaborating Centre in 2012.

He campaigned for many years for changes to India's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act to make morphine available for pain relief; the amendment was passed in February 2014. He has contributed to Lancet Commission reports on palliative care and pain relief, and published a memoir, Walk with the Weary, in 2022.

Recognition

Rajagopal received the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism from Human Rights Watch in 2014 and the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2018. In 2017 the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine named him among thirty of the most influential leaders in hospice and palliative medicine, and in 2019 he was included in the Asian Scientist 100. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 and again in 2023.[2][3][4][5]

Pallium India

Pallium India provides palliative care services and trains health workers in pain relief and end-of-life care. It reports a network of 256 palliative care centres and 12,375 people trained.

Pallium India reports the following, on its own site: