Dubai: An Indian specialist paediatrician who has treated thousands of children in the UAE, passed away after a three-year fight with lung cancer.
Dr. M. Viswanathan, who had worked in the UAE for over two decades, died in Chennai on Friday. He had left the UAE only two months ago.
A post graduate paediatrician from India, he was a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in both UK and Ireland. He was also a member of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics, Indian Medial Association, American Academy of Paediatrics, and the European Respiratory Society.
In the UAE, he first worked with the Welcare Hospital in Dubai. In 2001, he established Modern Child Speciality Clinic, which later became Modern Family Clinic in Karama. He worked last with Medeor Hospital in Bur Dubai.
Previously he had served in different hospitals in Chennai, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research in Pondicherry and the ministry of health in Saudi Arabia.
The news about his death spread here through WhatsApp and Facebook. Several residents whose children had been treated by Dr. Viswanathan, and his former colleagues, have mourned his demise.
Dr. Shajir Gaffar, the CEO of VPS Healthcare that runs Medeor Hospital, told Gulf News that the entire medical fraternity here has been saddened by the death of Dr. Viswanathan.
“He was one of the most reputed and most loved paediatricians in town and had a large following of patients. It is a great loss for the Medeor and VPS family. I was personally close to him and used to consult him for my daughters.”
“I salute him for the brave fight he put up against cancer. He was already in the second stage of the disease when he joined Medeor two and half years back. But he was still the most hard working and dedicated doctor. He used to go for his chemotherapy during weekends, or fly to London because there was a clinical trial on him going on in a university there. But the day he was back, he would be back at work.”
Dr. Viswanathan is survived by his wife and a son who is doing residency in medicine in London.
Karama resident Cynthia Risa Joseph remembered him as a doctor who would blow one’s concerns away after every visit.
“He was a very famous paediatrician. His clinic was next to our building and I used to take my son to him when he was a child.”
“There used to be huge rush of patients to see him, because parents would come with their kids even from Sharjah and Al Ghusais. But we would still wait patiently because we would get a big relief after consulting him. He had a special way of explaining everything in detail,” she recollected.
