Our new medical centre was opened in 2011 to provide a daily clinic for our local community.

Before this people had to travel 15km to the nearest hospital as there is only one bus morning and evening and a 4km walk to the main road – a problem if there are emergencies such as snake bites which are common in our area.  We employ a full-time nurse and have a rota of doctors who also work part time for the Government hospital in Dharmapuri.

On our team we currently have a paediatrician as well as a General Practitioner and we run clinics six afternoons a week. We also have a receptionist, and an administrator who are building up awareness of the services we provide throughout the surrounding villages and a watchman and cleaner who maintain the clinic.

Our vision was to build an appropriate, sustainable, functional clinic which could serve our community for many years to come. VIA Design helped manage the project as well as fundraising and overseeing the construction of the building with support from many friends of MAT around the world including East Meets West. Important concepts for the design of the clinic were taken from its geographic and historic context, Dever Outhu Pallam, which literally means God’s Spring Village. The King of the region and his entourage used to come here to bathe, centuries ago, when the village, which is named after him, was famous for the springs of water which have long since dried up.
Aware of the significant percentage of water that makes up the human body and the need of clean water for good health, we designed a simple water-feature for the clinic reception area, which harvests rain water from the roof. Patients can wait here peacefully before they see a doctor or nurse.  We can also use this area, which seats up to 50 people, to provide information through talks and video screenings on primary health-care.

On a deeper level still, we believe in the restoration of the whole person through a relationship with the living God, so the words we chose to surround the simple circular pool are words of Jesus from the Bible: “Come and drink freely of the water of life..” which we have engraved in Tamil and English. We are thankful to God who provided the resources and through whom we are seeing lives made whole and transformed, physically emotionally and spiritually.

You can read more about the building here.