Mumbai's Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital has been the go-to for most of India's top sportspersons, many among them part of the current Olympic contingent
Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala is treating a patient at the Department of Sports Medicine at Mumbai’s Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital.
Image: Courtesy Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Mumbai
In early 2020, a young man stepped out of a cab in front of Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in suburban Mumbai. A security guard immediately stopped him as he was carrying something resembling a spear. The man, smiling and calm, told the guard he wanted to meet Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala of the hospital. Concerned, the guard contacted his boss, who called his boss and the CEO Dr Santosh Shetty. Shetty prompted the guard to find out the man’s name. Neeraj Chopra, the guard relayed to Shetty. “‘Please take him to Dr Pardiwala,’ I asked the guard. Neeraj, after his elbow surgery and initial rehab at our department of sports medicine, had promised Dinshaw the javelin if he qualified for Tokyo Olympics. He had just done that in South Africa. So, he carried his javelin in a taxi straight from the Mumbai airport,” says Dr Shetty.
Chopra’s javelin is mounted on the wall above the window in Dr Pardiwala’s examination room, part of his two-room office, bigger than the average Mumbai flat, on the first floor of the hospital that houses the country’s most sought-after sports medicine department. A boxing glove signed by Olympic bronze medal-winning MC Mary Kom stands like a trophy in one corner, a badminton racquet framed along with photographs of Olympic bronze medal-winning shuttler Saina Nehwal in action hangs alongside autographed jerseys of Indian cricketers Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina, and Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga. There are also numerous other memorabilia sent as a sign of gratitude by champion wrestlers, boxers, athletes, footballers, tennis players, who have been nursed back to match fitness at this hospital’s sports medicine department.
From the T20 World Cup-winning India wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant, who suffered a career-threatening car crash a couple of years ago, to the double Olympic medal-winning badminton player PV Sindhu, from wrestling Olympic bronze medallist Vinesh Phogat to India’s tennis legend Leander Paes, also an Olympic medal-winner, almost every top athlete in India has turned to the Centre for Sports Medicine at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital whenever they have suffered any injury or niggle.
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