S. Rangarajan

Rangarajan was a member of the TVS family and the son of T. S. Santhanam, who founded Sundaram Finance in 1954, and of Padma Santhanam.

He qualified as a chartered accountant and took an MBA in finance. At the age of thirty he changed direction, completing an MBBS at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, and an MD in general medicine at Madras Medical College.

Rangarajan established the Sundaram Medical Foundation after extensive consultation with residents of the Anna Nagar neighbourhood of Chennai, with the support of his father and the Sundaram Finance group of companies. The hospital opened with 50 beds in 1994. His stated aim was a hospital providing quality health care that was cost-effective and community-centred, in an environment that was clean, caring and responsive to patients' needs, and which could serve as a model for healthcare delivery in India.

The foundation has since grown into a multi-specialty trust hospital, with its main facility at Shanthi Colony in Anna Nagar and an outpatient facility in Mogappair West, and has continued to be supported by the Sundaram Finance group.

Rangarajan died in 1997. The institution subsequently added the name Dr Rangarajan Memorial Hospital, and a cancer-care organisation, CANSTOP, was established in his memory. The foundation also runs community education programmes on diabetes, hypertension and asthma.[2][3][4]