Vighnaharta Multispeciality Hospital: Delivering affordable, quality healthcare services for everyone

The Covid-19 pandemic threw one curveball after another at the Indian healthcare system. It exposed a plethora of its frailties but it also shone a light on its heroes - healthcare professionals who worked selflessly, tirelessly, and thanklessly, putting themselves directly in harm’s way to save lives. And there is an abundance of such heroes to be found across the country. Pachora’s Vighnaharta Multispeciality Hospital (VMH) is one such location.

The hospital, owned by acclaimed and awarded Dr Bhushan Ajabrao Magar, treated more than 3000 Covid patients in Pachora. Ably supported by his team of doctors, nurses and technicians, Dr Magar played a pivotal role in limiting Covid casualties in Pachora, especially among those who couldn’t even afford basic healthcare. A significant proportion of their patients came to Pachora from various districts of north Maharashtra, such as Dhule, Jalgaon, Aurangabad, Nashik, etc. to seek expert and affordable care.

The hospital was converted into a ‘Covid-only’ facility and doctors stayed at a hotel for months, far from their family, to dedicate more time to patients and keep their families safe from the hazards of constant exposure to the virus. Unfortunately, many of them got infected by the virus, and the infection was severe enough to necessitate hospitalization for Dr Magar.

But the virus didn’t stop them from serving others though - the hospital provided free treatment to 1200 patients, waiving off all hospitalization and medication expenses, and oxygen costs. The others were asked to pay only 50% of these expenses. This act aligns with Dr Magar’s strong commitment to the principle of ‘service’ and the goal of providing high quality, low cost health care to even the least fortunate sections of our society.

Awards & recognition

Dr Magar’s contribution towards the fight against Covid brought him as many as 8 awards, including the Maharashtra seva ratan award, Sant Gadge baba state india servant award, Humanitarian service award, Corona warrior award, and Revenue dept. of Maharashtra’s.Corona Yodha award for excellence service to society. He’s also won a host of other awards for his services beyond the Covid crisis, such as Clean hero award and Arogya seva ratan award.

Ambitious future plans

A first-hand experience of the pandemic, watching patients suffer due to bad infrastructure, motivated VMH management to embark on a mission to rectify the wrongs. Dr Magar says, “The main goal is that any time any patient comes on our doorstep, we should be ready to treat them. And that's only possible when the Infrastructure would be strong, we’ll have enough manpower, and capable doctors. Our resources should be increased and their utilization must be maximized.”

In line with that thought, Dr. Magar and his team at VMH plan to open 100 multispeciality hospitals across the metro cities and set up two medical colleges in Jalgaon district. They also aim to establish Jalgaon’s first affordable cancer hospital in Pachora.

The VMH organization also has ambitious yet realistic plans to boost medical tourism. They intend to capitalize on cloud technology to make healthcare services more accessible than ever before. Some of their key initiatives planned around medical tourism include launching telehealth programs that enable digital transmission of diagnostic scans and video conferencing sessions between patients and physicians, utilizing AI-powered cloud systems to help doctors deliver personalized treatment, connecting all the hospitals and diagnostic centers on a single platform for better information management, and forming strategic partnerships with NBFCs and finance companies and integrating various finance programs into one platform for patients to explore easy payment options for their treatment.

The pages slugged ‘Brand Connect’ are equivalent to advertisements and are not written and produced by Forbes India journalists.