Popular clinics celebrate 20th anniversary

Two popular Auckland medical practices celebrated their 20th anniversary last week with a sumptuous lunch for associates, staff and friends at a popular Indian restaurant in Auckland.

Mount Roskill Medical Centre and Epsom Medical Centre based in Mt Roskill and Epsom respectively have both grown from humble beginnings to sizeable practices serving the growing communities of the two suburbs as also their neighbouring ones over the past twenty years.

Outlining the stories of their small beginnings and the trials and struggles of their earlier years, Dr Vinod Sharma of Mt Roskill Medical Centre and Dr Anshu Sharma of Epsom Medical Centre thanked colleagues, co-workers, past employees, well wishers, friends and all those who had a played a role in the growth of these two busy practices.

Dr Vinod Sharma recalled the interesting experiences he had in the Thames area of Coromandel where he first landed an assignment on arrival as a young doctor from India. “Not only was the style of working different, but it took quite an effort to get used to the language and culture,” he said.

He narrated several hilarious instances of these cultural, lingual and pronunciation clashes with co-workers and patients to the delight of the audience at the New Delhi restaurant in Royal Oak.

At a time when most Indian doctors were predominantly located in South Auckland, Dr Vinod said he took a conscious decision to set up his practice in Central Auckland, where also a large number of Indian and South

Asian immigrants had begun settling in. In hindsight, it was indeed an excellent decision, going by the considerable success the clinic has had.

It is now one of the big practices in Auckland and houses several diagnostic facilities and a pharmacy on the premises, which is conveniently located at one of the main junctions in the Mount Roskill area.

Dr Anshu Sharma also traced the history of the Epsom practice – how it had grown from a single room outfit to one that now occupies a sizeable building on Manukau Road, complete with multiple consultation rooms and its very own pharmacy besides parking spaces for several cars.

She also spoke about the longterm relationships the practice had established with doctors, associates and the community. Her colleague, Dr Neeraja Surendran has been with the practice since its earliest days.

Both doctors expressed gratitude to colleagues and staff at the practices as well as those that had worked with them down the years, peppering their speeches with a string of interesting anecdotes – both professional and personal.

National Party MP Peseta Sam Lotu Liga, who was a guest of honour at the event, praised the doctors and staff for their work and contribution to the communities around the location of the practices in his brief address.

Dr Rajiv Sood, both a doctor and director at the Mt Roskill Medical Centre since inception recalled how the doctors juggled their professional and personal lives with scarce infrastructure and resources in the early years.