By Our Staff Reporter
Haridwar, 11 Aug: Doodhadhari Burfani Hospital and Research Institute at Bhupatwala, here, is to reopen on 16 August. Its OPD will function from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily from Monday to Saturday. As before, the hospital will be free of charge for registration, consultation, testing, prescribing medicine and patient care.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the important challenge for the administrators of the hospital was to manage corona virus infected patients efficiently. Therefore, when the Government of Uttarakhand desired to take over the hospital to manage COVID-19 patients only, the management of the hospital willingly handed over the entire hospital and cooperated at every step to overcome the challenges during the pandemic. As the outbreak is now contained, the Government has returned the hospital to the management.
Sant Prabhudas Maharaj, the proprietor of the hospital, envisions best care for all patients attending the hospital. To achieve this objective, he has appointed Professor Arunaloke Chakrabarti, the former Head of Department at PGIMER, Chandigarh, and past-president of International Society for Human and Animal Mycology, as well as national advisor during black fungus outbreak, as the Director of the hospital. Prof Chakrabarti was recognised as among the most hard-working and best researchers at PGIMER, Chandigarh, during his 39 year stint there. Prof Chakrabarti has made fresh appointments of doctors at the hospital. They are being recruited from different corners of the country to provide state-of-art patient care service.
At present, 12 senior doctors of different specialties will develop the medicine, surgery, gynecology, eye, ENT and laboratory departments at the hospital.
Uttarakhand is no longer at the same level of healthcare as it was in 2004 when the hospital was opened. Many public and private sector hospitals have come up in Haridwar, Rishikesh, and Dehradun, including AIIMS at Rishikesh. However, poor patients still suffer as they cannot afford to purchase medicines and consumables, despite the testing and consultation being subsidised or made free through the Ayushman programme. In this challenging scenario, Doodhadhari hospital has maintained its unique position. Though it is a completely free hospital, it provides best doctors, state of the art facilities, and best management. The hospital provides facilities at all levels, from primary care to specialised patient care. It provides integrated services in, both, preventive and curative aspects of modern medicine as well as alternative medicine.
Sant Prabhudas Maharaj is living example of the same. Though he graduated in modern medicine, he has practiced homeopathic medicine throughout his life. He has built this hospital so that no patient remains untreated irrespective of income status. The doctors of the hospital wish to fulfill his dream.
