Thiruvananthapuram: Organisers of MedEx 2017 are planning to retain a part of the artistic healthcare expo permanently with the Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, as a medical museum. They have also mooted the idea to develop a terrace museum. The pathology museum which displays close to 700 specimens has been renovated as part of MedEx and will now be permanently retained. “This will be used by students as it is part of their curriculum,” said Dr Ajith Kumar, the festival’s artistic director. “But it will be open to everyone who is interested.”
The walk-through exhibits on the terrace, like eye and brain, will be restored if the proposal for the terrace museum falls through. “We are planning to propose that a museum which presents a cross-section of all departments be developed on the terrace,” he said. “It will be a museum which can be covered in a couple of hours.” The organisers say that much money has been invested into the exhibits with the idea that most of it will be eventually retained.
“This will be an investment for the college,” says Amal Ahammad, general secretary, Kerala University of Health Science Students’ Union. The organisers had started out with a budget of Rs 1.2 crore, but estimate that it will cross Rs 1.7 crore. The students got Rs 4 lakh as grant from the students’ union, Rs 20 lakh from principal’s fund and took an overdraft of Rs20 lakh. “The rest were individually contributed by students and faculty. Some students even pledged their gold ornaments to raise the money, as it was hard to find sponsors post demonetisation,” Mr Ahammad said. “More than one lakh people have visited the expo,” he said. “We shall break even if another 50,000 people visited it before it closes on February 12.”
