PBMA’s H V Desai Eye Hospital is the biggest tertiary eye care center in western India. It offers all subspecialty services in ophthalmology such as cataract, retina, glaucoma, cornea, pediatric ophthalmology, oculoplasty and ocular oncology, LASIK, low vision, and rehabilitation services.
Apart from the excellent services that they provide, they believe it is their moral duty to train more and more ophthalmologists to make them better surgeons and specialists. Larger benefit to the society is possible only through this approach. They are a nationally and internationally recognized training center for not only cataract surgical skills but also all other subspecialties.
Moreover, for betterment of healthcare, the hospital believes in and performs research that can directly or indirectly improve eye health of lakhs of people in the society.
About the Percipient Leader
Col. M. Deshpande is the Chief Medical Director of this organization. He is a highly respected professor nationally and an extremely popular teacher across generations of ophthalmologists. He served as a professor and Head of ophthalmology department of Armed Forces Medical College, Pune till 1997. Col. Deshpande has received Vishishtha Seva Medal (VSM) at the hands of President of India for his exemplary service in Army.
He has also received many accolades in the form of ‘outstanding service’ award (2012) from Asia Pacific Association for Ophthalmology (APAO) and a prestigious post of ‘President, Vision 2020 India right to sight’ between 2013 and 2015. He was actively involved with advocacy and policy making in close collaboration with Govt. of India during this period.
Dedicated Patient Service
High Volume High Quality
The hospital aims at providing complete care and assistance to the patients. They provide a variety of services benefitting the patients. Patients can access services for all eye conditions under one roof rather than running from one specialist to other. The hospital has fully developed subspecialty departments with a team of specialists in each department. Also, patients have access to the best of doctors as well as all modern diagnostic equipment.
The multi-tier fees structure and a dedicated charity wing allows patients from all socio-economic classes (the richest to the poorest) to avail their services. There is simply no discrimination as far as ability to pay is concerned.
The hospital’s sought after training programs churn out doctors who have not only excellent skills but also a humane attitude. Society at large stands to benefit from these freshly skilled doctors.
Assisting the ones in Need
The hospital aims at assisting the poor and deprived. They have a dedicated charity wing which provides free surgeries to persons from lower socioeconomic class. Nearly 65% of their surgical services are free or subsidized. They also provide free transport, accommodation and food facility to these poor patients who would have otherwise gone blind.
The hospital is very sensitive to eye health needs of children and provides free/subsidized eye care services to children from poor families. They believe in excellent quality as well as timeliness of the services.
Providing the ‘Human Touch’- (Care & Concern)
HV Desai strives to provide a personalized touch to their clinical services. They take pride in this approach and vouch not to turn any patient for the lack of money. Moreover, offering excellent quality services to the patients is their prime motto. One of the major qualities of the hospital is the provision of affordable services to one and all.
Facing Challenges Head-On
HV Desai believes in being compassionate; they have a ‘never say die’ attitude and a sense of a social responsibility. The hospital has strong faith in continuous quality improvement which makes them thrive on challenges. Excellent networking abilities enable them to raise funds for serving the unserved and move ahead with full vigor. They believe in learning from the challenges and look at them as opportunities.
Noteworthy Accomplishments
Throughout its glorious journey, the hospital has also achieved various awards and accolades. Founder and former president of PBMA’s H. V. Desai Eye Hospital, Niranjan Pranshankar Pandya was awarded with ‘Padmashree’ at the hands of President of India in 2013 for outstanding contribution of HV Desai Eye Hospital in prevention of blindness and rehabilitation of the blind.
Creating ophthalmologist for future
H V Desai Eye Hospital offers Postgraduate Education in Ophthalmology, Nodal hospital for skill transfer to Government of India and Research.
Future Plans
HV Desai Eye Hospital aims to expand outreach of their services across various regions in Maharashtra, so that patients with serious eye diseases do not have to travel to Pune for treatment. They are implementing this through the establishment of vision centers and eye hospitals across various places (Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Solapur, Wai, and so on).
They also intend to become a sought after training center internationally, and provide consultancy services to other eye hospitals, nationally and internationally. The hospital is in the process of achieving this objective through close collaboration with globally recognized NGOs/institutes such as Seva Canada, Orbis USA, CBM Germany, International Centre for Eye Health London UK, and so on.
They are on the way to become an internationally acclaimed research institute by implementing many clinical as well as public health research projects.
This NGO institute has best mixture of management & technical, social & professional leadership. Nitin Desai, Chairman has provided corporate intelligence in managing operations & policy. Col. M. Deshpande provided professional & technical guideline of High quality other supported with resource mobilization and young team has helped to develop & continue to serve for years to come.
