Tina Ambani’s Goals for Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital

“Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them,” said Jim Rohn an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker once. Tina Ambani, chairperson of Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital has been reverberating this quote in her work ever since she has got involved with the operations of Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital. And the best thing about her steering them is that even if she has goals, she’s more inclined towards the path being paved well.  She feels that it is the journey that is critical, while the destination is just by the way.

Talking about her goal for Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Tina says that she wants India to be placed on the global healthcare map. She adds that her team at the hospital is taking painstaking efforts to be a very-well established medical facility. She wants to ensure that the treatment that the hospital is offering is given to the people belonging to every economic stratum.

It all happened by chance for Tina. Before she could even know it, Anil Ambani, her husband and chairman of Reliance Group had asked her to take the project up. Tina, who always is game for any such challenge, felt this project couldn’t be better than a birthday gift. Anil signed the MoU for the hospital on his mother’s birthday which also falls in the same month as that of Tina’s.

She was handed the challenge in the year 2005 and she obviously did not have any knowledge of medicine or how to go about setting up a hospital. But Anil said that he would find her a person to aid her in the process. After that, she handled everything on her own. She began with a team of four people and then went onto build a comprehensive professional, passionate, and dedicated team for this hospital.

The hospital has 750 beds and has a large lobby designed, which gives a look and feel that is as good as that of a hotel reception area. Tina was quite particular about the fact that it should not smell like a hospital and the idea was that the visitors and the patients should not feel that they are in a hospital.

Sharing more about the hospital, she says that the hospital has been set up so that it meets the American Medical Standards. So irrespective of the nurses, qualification of the doctors, or acquiring space, she wanted to ensure that the hospital is in line with international standards and she and her team feels good about what they have done.

Once the core professional team was put together, Tina sat at every meeting and worked on the plan for two-and-a-half years, visiting hospitals in the US, Europe and China to bring together an arrangement beseeming India's environment and culture. Once the construction started, she travelled from her home in Cuffe Parade, to Andheri at the other end of the city every day for three years looking at the progress of construction, collaborating with experts like the team from England on the assembling of the hospital.

  The hospital seeks to encourage foreigners and Non-Resident Indians for treatment, especially from the US, UK, Canada and Africa. As per the US Census Bureau Report, 27.5 million people were uninsured in the year 2018. Considering the pricing for medical services is competitive in our country and in terms of what is available in their country, the foreigners can always come to this hospital for the treatments. As a matter of fact, patients from America have travelled all the way to India for cosmetic surgery, dentistry, joint replacements and cardiac procedures.

Tina calls the hospital her third baby. After being involved for a decade now, Tina feels that this hospital has changed her perspective on life. She says that the hospital has brought a meaning to her which is tricky to explicate since it touches the lives of the people.