Kolkata: Jack Preger, Kolkata’s ‘Pavement Doctor’ who spent nearly four decades treating the city’s poorest and most vulnerable people, died on Oct 31 in Norfolk, UK, after a brief illness. He was 96.Born in Manchester in 1930, Preger had once considered becoming a rabbi. He later won a place at Oxford to study economics and political science, becoming the first Jewish student admitted to St Edmund Hall. At 34, he decided to study medicine and enrolled at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin the following year.After qualifying as a doctor, he converted to Catholicism, learnt Spanish and planned to work among the poor in South or Central America. But in 1972, responding to a radio appeal, he travelled to newly independent Bangladesh to provide medical care to refugees living in desperate conditions in Dhaka.In 1979, he was expelled from Bangladesh after exposing a child-smuggling racket allegedly involving govt officials and linked to the trafficking of children to the Netherlands. He then moved to Kolkata, though he never stopped trying to trace the missing children.In Kolkata, Preger initially worked with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity for six months before leaving to treat destitute people living on the city’s pavements, many of them refugees from the conflict that led to the creation of Bangladesh.His work among pavement-dwellers led to the founding of Calcutta Rescue, which was formally registered in 1991. The organisation now runs clinics, schools and vocational training centres across Kolkata and is estimated to have treated around half a million people. Preger was awarded an MBE and was named Philanthropist of the Year at the Asian Awards in London.Subhajit Sana, teacher and in-charge of Calcutta Rescue’s education project, Pathshala, remembered him as gentle and attentive. “He was very fond of the children and would interact with those studying under our project, often speaking to them in Bengali. He was a soft and kind-hearted man, and had eyes and ears for the smallest details,” he said.Preger’s years in Kolkata were also marked by repeated legal battles with the authorities who tried to stop him from practising medicine and block overseas donations to Calcutta Rescue. He was imprisoned at one point and contracted amoebic dysentery in jail. Disturbed by the prison conditions he witnessed, he began campaigning for penal reform after his release.He was expelled several times but kept returning to continue his work. In Jan 2019, at the age of 88, he left Kolkata permanently for the UK, entrusting Calcutta Rescue to the team he had built.“On July 26, we celebrated his 96th birthday at our clinics. I had come to London to rebuild relations with some of our patrons in the UK and raise funds. I was supposed to visit Dr Preger and tell him in person that we were carrying forward the work he started. Unfortunately, just a day before our visit, we were informed that he had passed away,” said Snehaish Bhowmick, secretary of Calcutta Rescue.
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