Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar laid the foundation stone for the Mata Amritanandamayi Math’s new two thousand bed Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences & Research Centre (Amrita Hospital) in Greater Faridabad on May 9, 2016. The ceremony took place in the presence of Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri, Vice Chairman of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math.

Union Minister of State for Social Justice & Empowerment Krishnan Pal Gurjar and a host of other dignitaries also graced the occasion, which marked the beginning of construction of the state-of-the-art healthcare facility spread across nearly 100 acres in Sector 88, Greater Faridabad.

Swami Amritaswarupananda welcomed the dignitaries and read a statement from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham Chancellor Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, Amma: “May this new hospital become an abode of service to humankind and a place of solace for the sick. We should never forget that we require two types of health — external and internal. While external (bodily) health is no doubt important, internal health, which involves cultivating a sharing and caring attitude and compassion for the less fortunate, is no less crucial.”

Haryana Chief Minister Sri. Manohar Lal said: “India has a long tradition of saints working for social reforms and helping the poor. Mata Amritanandamayi is a shining example of this. She is an embodiment of love and compassion who has tirelessly worked for the welfare of entire humanity. She considers service to the poor as the greatest form of worship. Her Math is doing yeoman service around the world in the areas of education and health. I congratulate the citizens of Faridabad and all of Haryana for her decision to construct a 2,000-bed super-specialty hospital and medical college in Faridabad. It will benefit not only this industrial city, but also surrounding regions like Palwal and several districts of UP.”

Sri. Krishnan Pal Gurjar unveiled a scale model of the Amrita Hospital at the ceremony.

“With a planned facility of 2,000 beds, the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences & Research Centre is set to become the largest hospital in Delhi-NCR,” said Sri. Satyananda Misra, Former Chief Information Commissioner of India, who will serve as the new hospital’s Executive Director.

Dr. Prem Nair, Medical Director of the current Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences & Research Centre in Kochi, enumerated the state-of-the-art facilities planned for the new hospital planned for Faridabad. “The new hospital at Faridabad will feature the complete range of specialities, super-specialties and Centres of Excellence. These will include a heart institute, an institute for high-precision cancer diagnosis and therapy, organ transplantation, an advanced centre for neurosciences and epilepsy, an institute for diabetes and metabolism, a centre for liver and biliary diseases, an institute for minimally invasive and robotic surgery, a burn unit, a centre for bone and joint diseases, an advanced centre for lung diseases and transplantation, an institute for physical medicine and rehabilitation, a centre for spinal disorders, an advanced laboratory for molecular diagnostics, an advanced centre for medical imaging, and interventional radiology, among others. It is our goal to have most, if not all, of these facilities provided and rapidly scaled with the new hospital’s launch.”

The hospital will also have a strong focus on mother-and-child healthcare, he said. It will include a highly specialised multidisciplinary Children’s Hospital with maternal and foetal medicine and all paediatric subspecialties, including paediatric cardiology, heart surgery and transplantation, rheumatology, endocrinology, pulmonology, neurosciences, paediatric genetics, gastroenterology, paediatric orthopaedics and paediatric and foetal surgery.

Added Dr. Prem Nair: “It’s important to have a place where complete medical assistance and treatment for mother and child, including advanced paediatric medicine, can be attained under one roof. This is something lacking in many localities throughout India, as many private hospitals do not see mother-child care as monetarily sustainable.”

Dr. Nair pointed out that since the inception of the Amrita Hospital, Kochi, in 1998, the Mata Amritanandamayi Math (MAM) has provided totally free medical care to more than 41 lakh [4.1 million] patients, and, during that time, MAM has provided more than Rs. 536.33 crores [$85 million U.S.] in charitable medical care. He said that the new Amrita Hospital would continue the Mata Amritanandamayi Math’s tradition of providing a strong presence of charitable and subsidized care.

Sri. Satyananda Mishra, the Executive Director said that the new hospital would also dedicate an entire block to conducting original research, particularly with a focus on finding low-cost solutions to healthcare problems to make medical care more affordable to the common man.

Amrita Hospital, Kochi, is part of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math’s No. 1-ranked private university, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, and Dr. Nair said the Delhi NCR hospital would become a teaching hospital under the same university system.