Medicine Baba - An Octogenarian Who Walks for a Noble Cause

Medicine Baba - the dispenser of medicines is no doctor, but he does what very few doctors can do - collect and distribute medicine free of cost to the poor on a daily basis. He leaves his home early morning and walks for five to seven kilometres a day with a jhola and collects unused medicines whose expiry dates are not yet over. People usually throw away such medicines which go waste. Omkar Nath Sharma - the Medicine Baba as he is popularly called - collects them for free distribution to those who cannot afford to buy them. He does it through private hospitals and NGOs.

Medicine Baba is more than eighty years old. He was crippled at the age of twelve in a car accident. He has a forty-five-year-old mentally challenged son living him. Yet his zeal is endless, his sense of piety and charity is exemplary spurring him to take long walks inside the colonies of Delhi to collect unused medicines. He travels by buses to reach different localities by using his senior citizen pass and then moves inside the colonies, his booming voice exhorting people to donate their unused medicines.

Omkar Nath retired as a blood bank technician from Kailash Hospital in Greater Noida, near Delhi in Uttar Pradesh. In 2008 he saw the plight of the poor and helpless during the collapse of a Delhi Metro under-construction bridge in East Delhi. It left two labourers dead and many others injured. The local hospital only administered First Aid and sent them away. Some of the injured returned home only to die in the absence of proper medicine and treatment. That incident moved Omkar Nath and he became "Medicine Baba" to ensure such tragedy does not befall the needy again.

Medicine Baba is scrupulously meticulous. He carries a notebook with him and carefully records the names of the medicines, the manufacturers, date of expiry and the place of collection. He entrusts the medicine to the hospitals and charges nothing since the medicines are donated by people who have no use for them.

There is a Website http//medicinebaba.org where Medicine Baba proclaims that he has been serving the poor for more than ten years by providing free medicine to the poor and the needy. His team has now expanded to more than forty workers and there are four centres where free medicines are distributed. He distributes medicines worth several Lakhs of rupees every month. The local citizens also help him by putting medicine donation boxes in different localities where people drop their unused medicines.

In recognition of his selfless service Medicine Baba has received the Delhi Gaurav Award in 2016 and the  Mumbai ShoorVeer Award in 2017.

The accompanying video clip is a testimony to the wonderful service rendered by the Medicine Baba in the cause of the poor.

PositiveVibes.Today is proud to record the extraordinary initiative of this Octogenarian and wishes him many more years of exemplary service to the needy.