HEALTH & LIFE’S – A SPECIAL TRIBUTE CURRENT CIRCULATION: DATE: ISSUE NO:
7027 8th October 2007 149
Welcome to Health & Life’s free email newsletter service. Tell a friend that we would be happy to add their email address to the distribution list. This service is to provide Health and Life’s clients and those who attended our presentations with up to date information on key financial and practice management issues that may affect your practice. Please do not use this as a substitute to seeking professional advice. Writer in charge: Mr David Dahm BA.Acc, CPA, FTIA, Ffin, FAAPM, GLFG.
A Special Tribute – the late Dr Hari P Dahm It is with great sadness, I write this tribute to my father the late Dr Hari Pada Dahm who passed st away quietly on 1 October 2007 at the age of 77. Thank you to the many that have sent flowers, cards, emails and those that have been able to visit the family and offer their support. Your condolences and kind words to the family have given us much strength under this most difficult time for us. I thought I would use this opportunity to share with you a short inspiring personal story about a remarkable man and doctor who I am very proud of. He was proud, tenacious and ambitious. He also loved and was dedicated to his patients until the very end. My father had a good innings despite a precarious start. “Dreams are the seeds of reality” Anon His passing was a time for reflection for me. As late as last week, the family learnt for the first time the poverty and hardship he faced as a young boy. He was too proud to say and did not let on how deeply he was affected until his last days to my mum. He had many challenges in life that can only dwarf our own. My Dad’s life is a celebration of his life itself. Born in India his father was a lawyer and he had owned 70 acres of land. Unfortunately they were on the wrong side of the border and they had lost it all during the Bengal partition in 1947 when India won its independence from the British Empire. His family faced poverty and ruin. Just before the partition he lost his father at the age of 17 and his mother a few years later. After losing everything, he still followed his passion to become a doctor. He begged and borrowed from friends to do medicine. From his village he would walk bare foot 13 km to school everyday crossing a river. He finally completed his specialist qualifications in psychiatry in England and he worked in Australia for the rest of his life. In the end he was married with 4 kids and 7 grandchildren and had perfect health until 18 months ago when he was told he had 3 to 5 years to live.