Rani Balloo: Taking healthcare to the next level 

Rani Balloo, a well known figure in the health sector, has been climbing the success ladder as years go by. She has given a new direction to healthcare. She forms part of the 50 Outstanding Women in Healthcare, the 100 most influential women and awarded Outstanding Volunteer Award in 2016. Meet this lady of action. 

Rani Balloo is a visionary in her industry. Her competitive nature and determination cannot be beaten and she has earned the respect of her peers within the non governmental organisations and civil society. Her high level of expertise, healthy self confidence and excellent leadership skills are the cornerstone of her reputation. She wanted to become a doctor but circumstances did not favour her pursuing that goal. 

“I went overseas to study medicine. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I stopped after two years and came back and became a nurse instead. I left the public sector after 20 years, just after I finished my BSc in Nursing, in year 2002,” she reveals. 

While carrying out research work for her studies, she was surprised to see that children with diabetes was much of a taboo subject within the country. Parents were hardly aware of the implications of diabetes. As such, these children were not being cared for properly. Added to that, parents did not have the tools to care for their diabetic children. 

“There and then I decided to give up my job as a nurse in the public sector and joined the IBL as a Diabetes Educator. I had already decided that diabetes was going to be my battlefield. In 2006, I created the Diabetes Parent Support Group to give in-depth support to these children,” she says.

Under her leadership, the NGO won two awards for work done at community level: The National NGO Award in Year 2011 and The Barclays Colours of Life Award 2013, in the category ‘health & wellness’. 

In year 2014, she decided to rebrand her services and started operating under Diabetes Safeguard. A key reason for the rebrand was to ensure that the organisation’s name, Diabetes Safeguard, more accurately reflects the nature and scope of its work. Their activities, which have grown beyond mass awareness campaigns and provision of basic counselling services, now include strengthening of communities through training and capacity building and strategic programming in areas of non communicable diseases (NCD’s), namely obesity with its accompanying morbidity mainly in children, adolescents and women. She has also been the Chairperson of the ‘Youth and Health Committee’ of the MACOSS during 2012-2015.

Outstanding woman in the making 

She was surprised when she got an email from Dr L. Bhatia, founder of the World CSR Foundation. “I am thrilled and honoured at the same time. It is a symbol of achievement. It means I have contributed with something meaningful to the society. It is a sort of testament to commitment. It has made me become more aware of my responsibility towards the community. In fact it has spurred me to continue and find even more innovative ways of fighting for the community. It has renewed and invigorated my efforts,” she adds. 

The journey towards this achievement has been hilly. “It has been always difficult to look for funds. Lack of funding, lack of human resources, time constraint, effective champions, securing commitment and empowerment have been major challenges to overcome. Besides, it was also difficult to build long term relationships with the private sector to be able to get the work done. There has also been lack of collaboration, cooperation, acknowledgement of work accomplished and lack of political will. Another thing observed is the constant change of CSR guidelines,” she highlights. 

Unlike other people, Rani has a passion for fighting diabetes which is becoming a societal scourge. “This passion was ignited long before and it is still present. The passion is still strong. I am willing to create a unique tool to better control diabetes, to reduce the enormous sums of money spent on diabetes and to build a healthier society using information and communication technology [ICT] as well as urge government to initiate insulin pump therapy for children with type 1 diabetes.” 

Rani Balloo has been invited to participate in the ‘Golden Globe Tiger Awards for Excellence and Leadership in Health care Management’ to be held in Kuala Lumpur in April.