It was exactly on Kokilaben’s birthday in the month of
February of 2005, when Anil Ambani, Chairperson of Reliance Group, surprised
Tina, his wife by handing over the MoU of Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital.
“For me it was like a birthday gift.” He handed over the project to her and said,
“It is your baby now”, a project, she not only nurtured, but aided in
prospering as well. Being a corporate-housewife and former Bollywood star with
no knowledge of medicine or how to set up a hospital was handed the challenge
and Anil told her that he would find her one person to help--after that she was
on her own.
As a matter of fact, it was Anil who the hospital started,
told her that since that both of them have to start giving back to the society
since they have got so much from it. “You have got so much from the society. I
have got so much from the society. We need to give back. We need to nourish the
people we live with, to nourish the societies we live in, the communities we
live in. You can give in cash, kind, you can give in time, whatever suits you,
whatever works for you. But, giving back is very important because life is all
about give and take. It's a balance that nature has created and if you miss it,
it's just not right,” Anil said. And it was due to this sense of encouragement
that she got from Anil that it caused her to extend cancer care to rural India
with a series of oncology centres in western India.
She adds, how she started the hospital from scratch with a
team of four and whole professional, passionate, dedicated team for it. "I
wanted to make sure that I am at international standards and at the end of the
day I feel good about what we've done," she says.
Once the core professional team was put together, Tina sat
at every meeting and chalked out on the plan for two-and-a-half years, visiting
hospitals in the US, Europe and China to collate a format befitting India's
environment and culture. After the construction began, she traveled from her
home in Cuffe Parade, south Mumbai, to Andheri at the other end of the city
every day for 3 years looking at the progress of construction,
interacting with experts like the team from England on the amassing of the
hospital.
Anil accompanied Tina and Kokilaben, his mother after whom
the hospital has been named to the inaugural function of the hospital. Initially, the hospital started off as a
heart centre, but later they added on facilities to treat neurological
disorders, cancer, bone and joint disorders besides paediatrics and
physiotherapy. Today it is a
multi-specialty hospital with different departments in various streams of medical
sciences. At the time when it was open to public, it was the only
intra-operative MRI in an operation theatre that enabled surgeons to obtain
real time MRI images before, during and after surgery.
As regards the accolades it has received, the hospital was
ranked the No. 1 Private Hospital in Mumbai & Western India in The Week’s
Best Hospital Survey 2019. In fact, KDAH has also been ranked the No. 1
Multispecialty Hospital in Mumbai and the Western Region by The Times of India
for the past three years in a row. Also, Readers Digest adjudged it the Most
Trusted Hospital for Oncology and Critical Care. Tina Ambani calls the hospital
her third child.
Tina comes to work at the hospital thrice a week and wants
to expand, upgrade and make a mark as far as India is concerned in the medical
world. "As Anil says this is the daughter you never had. My commitment and
everything towards this hospital is like having a third baby," she says.
Even today, she feels that Anil has been her backbone and
her sense of inspiration for such an endeavor. She says, “He is very
constructive about his opinions and doesn't interfere. He lets me be and says
this is your project, do it the way you want. If you make mistakes you will
learn from it, that's the way to learn."
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