At around 5.20pm, more than 250 people gathered behind Mangaluru’s Wenlock Government District Hospital with steel plates, plastic containers and tiffin boxes. They were not waiting for treatment. They were waiting for the evening meal that helps families caring for hospitalised patients manage the cost of staying in the city.
The food is distributed under Karunya, a programme run by M. Friends Charitable Trust. The initiative provides evening meals to patient caregivers at Wenlock and, since last November, at the Government Lady Goschen Hospital as well. The programme’s scale reveals a less visible side of public healthcare: while inpatients receive free food from the hospital, the relatives who remain with them must usually arrange and pay for their own meals.
That distinction matters in a government hospital that draws patients from across the region. Wenlock, which has a history of more than a century, receives patients not only from Dakshina Kannada but also from Udupi, Chikkamagaluru, Shivamogga, Kodagu, Uttara Kannada and Haveri. Families dealing with prolonged illnesses can remain in Mangaluru for weeks or months. The medical treatment may be provided through the public system, but the cost of food, medicines, travel and accommodation continues to fall on the household.
The queue behind the hospital makes that burden visible. The Karunya vehicle arrives with the words ‘food for the hungry’ displayed on it. People collect three chapatis and a portion of curry before returning to the wards. For many, the meal is not an occasional act of charity but part of the daily arrangement that makes hospital care financially possible.
One of those caregivers, Babybai from Davanagere, was accompanying her son, who was receiving treatment for a kidney condition. She told the report that the family was carrying heavy debt and that she was unable to provide enough food for her children while paying for treatment. Another caregiver, Ravi Kumar, a daily-wage worker from Shivamogga, said the meals had reduced his concern about food. Sugandhi from Karkala said that hotel food could cost at least ₹150 a day, money that could instead be used to buy fruit for the patient.
These accounts show how hospital expenditure extends beyond the bill issued by the institution. A caregiver may not be admitted, but remains essential to the patient’s treatment journey. Relatives collect medicines, communicate with doctors, arrange tests, manage documents and remain beside the patient in the ward. Yet their food is treated as a private household expense, even when the patient’s stay is long and the family has travelled from another district.
Karunya has emerged to fill part of that gap. According to the trust’s executive president, Sujah Mohammed, M. Friends was formed in 2013 by like-minded people under the leadership of social worker Rashid Vitla. Its early activities included financial assistance for patients who could not pay hospital bills and the distribution of wheelchairs. The idea for a regular food programme came after team members, including Dr Mubashir, observed caregivers spending days without food because they could not afford it.
The meal service began in 2017 as a three-month programme. It continued through difficult periods, including the COVID-19 crisis, and has now run for nine years, according to the trust. The organisation says it serves an average of 400 people daily at Wenlock and around 100 at Lady Goschen. The monthly cost is approximately ₹2.5 lakh.
The operation depends on a combination of membership contributions and donations from financially stronger supporters. M. Friends has 72 members. Caregivers in the wards receive tokens during the afternoon, with food prepared according to the token count. S.K. Catering prepares between 1,500 and 2,000 chapatis or idlis, depending on requirements. Distribution begins at Wenlock at 5.30pm and is completed in about half an hour.
The arrangement is also adapted to the needs of patients and caregivers. Children’s wards receive a special service: volunteers go directly to the ward and hand the food to mothers. This avoids requiring caregivers to leave the ward or bring children into the distribution queue. Such a small operational decision reflects an important reality of hospital care: access to food depends not only on whether food exists, but also on whether a caregiver can safely and practically leave the patient.
The trust’s account of its fundraising shows how a continuing public need is being financed through personal networks and voluntary giving. During Ramadan, a message circulated in the organisation’s WhatsApp group after the evening fast. Zakaria Jokatte, the trust’s honorary president and a businessman, pledged to cover one month of food service during Ramadan and another month for his children’s birthdays. The group then began collecting funds, and the trust says it set a target of ₹30 lakh for one year’s food service, which was raised within a few hours.
Other donors have linked birthdays and wedding anniversaries to the programme. This model gives the service continuity, but it also underlines its dependence on charitable mobilisation. The regularity of the need is institutional; the funding remains largely voluntary. Every evening, the same queue is expected to return, even though the resources supporting it are assembled through donations, memberships and personal occasions.
The public hospital’s role is therefore only one part of the food system around treatment. The hospital provides free food to inpatients, while civil society organisations support those who accompany them. At Wenlock, the boundary between medical care and household survival is negotiated outside the formal hospital system, beside the road and near the rear entrance. The people waiting in line are not simply beneficiaries of a charitable programme. They are participants in the care infrastructure that enables patients to remain in hospital.
This distinction is particularly important for families from outside Mangaluru. A local patient may have relatives nearby or a home to which someone can return for a meal. A family travelling from Davanagere, Shivamogga, Kodagu or another district does not have the same options. For them, every additional day in the city adds expenses that are difficult to separate from the treatment itself. A low-cost meal can therefore affect whether a caregiver can remain present, whether a patient receives consistent support and whether the family’s limited money is diverted from medicines or nutrition.
The figures provided by the trust also offer a measure of the demand. Around 500 meals are being provided daily across Wenlock and Lady Goschen, while the catering operation prepares up to 2,000 individual items depending on the day’s requirement. The monthly spending of about ₹2.5 lakh represents a recurring service rather than a one-time relief effort. Its continuation for nine years suggests that the underlying need has not disappeared.
At the same time, the available account does not establish how many caregivers depend on the service across the full hospital complex, how many are unable to access it, or whether the public health system has considered a formal meal provision for attendants. It also does not provide a government estimate of caregiver food costs or information on the number of outstation families staying with patients. Those gaps matter because the charity’s figures describe the reach of one programme, not the complete scale of the problem.
What is clear is that the food queue reveals a form of urban vulnerability that is easy to miss in conventional accounts of hospitals. Public healthcare is often measured through beds, doctors, medicines and treatment capacity. For families, however, access also depends on the daily costs of reaching and remaining at the institution. Food, transport and caregiver time shape whether treatment can be sustained.
Karunya’s work, along with the afternoon food service provided by Snehalaya Trust, reduces one part of that burden. M. Friends also runs Class on Wheels, a mobile computer bus providing free computer education to government-school and slum-area children. The trust’s activities connect immediate relief with longer-term social support, but the hospital programme remains a reminder that charitable groups are supporting functions closely tied to the operation of public healthcare.
Every evening, the queue disperses within about thirty minutes. Caregivers carry empty containers back towards the wards, and the hospital resumes its night-time rhythm. The next evening, another line forms. Until the food needs of caregivers are addressed through a more formal and dependable support system, the ability of many families to remain beside their patients will continue to depend on the strength of local charity.