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A Friend Indeed!

Photographs by Rohitz Tickoo

Published: Volume 13, Issue 4, July-August, 2005

Being a government hospital, a doctor sees a hundred patients an hour and does not have the time to answer all their questions, so our social workers deal with that aspect.

The Pune-based Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospital holds out a comforting hand to distressed patients and their families. Its committed team ensures a regular supply of blood, fusses over tiny tots waiting for adoption and networks with other NGOs to fulfil individual needs. SHERNA GANDHY does the rounds with Madhuri Abhyankar, its dedicated director.

Enter the sprawling grounds of the Sassoon General Hospital in Pune and the noise, bustle and confusion of an overcrowded government-run hospital engulf you. Large numbers of patients wait endlessly outside rooms that are designated rather confusingly by number and not their function. Hospital staff thread their way serenely through the chaos, catering as best as they can to the desperate needs of 3,000 outpatients daily and three times that number in-house.

There is no signage anywhere but there is, thankfully, an information desk that guides me correctly to the small box-like office of Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospital (SOFOSH). To have a friend in this vast and confusing place, particularly at a time when one is in distress, must be very comforting, I reflect, as I meet a smiling Madhuri Abhyankar, director, social service, SOFOSH.

The organisation is well known both in Pune and outside, for its child adoption centre. But, as Abhyankar explains, this is only one of several important services offered by this remarkable voluntary and charitable organisation that is attached to the more than 100-year-old Sassoon Hospital, the largest public hospital in Pune district. “In the early 1960s, when the industrial belt of Pimpri-Chinchwad was developing, there were several accidents in the factories. The casualties were brought to Sassoon. Being a government hospital it had many shortcomings...like no blood sometimes or shortage of medicines. The managers of the industrial units were always complaining about this to the medical social workers. They were told to stop whining and do something to help.”

One of the first tasks the newly formed organisation tackled was ensuring a regular supply of blood. “Today, you only give blood if it is life saving. But in those days, blood transfusions were given even if you were just weak or anaemic,” laughs Abhyankar. Various blood donation schemes were started like getting celebrities to donate. Once, actor, Shashi Kapoor, was on hand to give donors his autograph. “In time, we got so much blood that storing it was a problem. We contacted the foundation run by the eminent Marathi litterateur, P L Deshpande, which readily gave us a preservation system,” says Abhyankar.

Contact information: Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospital, Room no 87, Sassoon General Hospital, Pune 411001. Tel: (020) 26124660/26120762.
Website: www.sofosh.org Email: director@sofosh.org

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