Sardar Bahadur Dr. Sohan Singh Eye Hospital Pvt. Ltd

Description

About SBSSEH
Nestled deep within the four walls of the historic city of Amritsar lies an ultra modern eye hospital founded by Sardar Bahadur Dr Sohan Singh at a site originally purchased as a family haveli in 1916 The hospital is named after Dr Sohan Singh who was a gifted teacher of Ophthalmology and an exceptionally talented eye surgeon apart from being a philanthropist educationist sportsman connoisseur of music and a lovable a family man

Those were the days of British rule in India The British government of the day conferred upon him the personal title of Sardar Bahadur and appointed him honorary eye surgeon to the Viceroy of India in recognition of his outstanding professional services and achievements His eagerness to see Indian Ophthalmology come upto world standards made him travel far and wide to places such as London Vienna Berlin and Paris to make himself familiar with the latest advances in the treatment of eye diseases

Sardar Bahadur Dr Sohan Singh passed away in 1961 and his Ophthalmologist son Dr Ranbir Singh stepped into his fathers shoes in the hope of being able to maintain the standard set by his illustrious father

Dr Ranbir Singh received part of his postgraduate training in the Moorfields Eye Hospital London where he specially concentrated on the subjects of squint and contact lenses He retired as head of the department of Ophthalmology at the Medical College Amritsar in 1974 but maintained the tempo of his professional activities Today at the age of 90 he is still active as a consultant

Dr Ranbir Singhs two sons Dr Rajbir Singh and Dr Preetam Singh are also highly qualified Ophthalmologists in their own right The elder of the two Dr Rajbir joined him in practice in 1978 after completing his training in vitreoretinal surgery at the University of California San Franscisco The younger one Dr Preetam joined him full time in 1991 on completion of his specialist training at the prestigious Sankara Nethralaya Eye Hospital in Chennai

Although the hospital offers medical and surgical care for all kinds of eye ailments it is specially known for surgeries involving the retina the highly sensitive and delicate film which lines the inside of the back wall of the eye It is the function of the retina to perceive and register visual impressions reaching it from objects outside the eye If for any reason the retina gets detached from its bed it begins to degenerate and lose its ability to perceive and register visual impulses reaching it from objects outside the eye Irreversible visual damage may result if the detachment remains untreated for a long time The required retina surgery in such cases involves delicate surgical procedures aimed at restoring eye sight by putting the detached retina back into its normal position The hospital is a pioneer in this particular field of eye surgery in Northern India having initiated it as long ago as March 1979The first Retinal Detachment procedure in the hospital was done in March 1979 and the first Pars Plana Vitrectomy in October 1983 In the words of Dr Preetam Singh retinal conditions that were considered intractable a few years back have now become treatable thanks to the revolutionary advances in the knowledge and technology made during the course of past two decades

And now true to family tradition Dr Rajbir Singhs son Dr Ajay Singh has also emerged as a highly qualified and promising young Ophthalmologist who has joined the hospital as a junior consultant after doing his Retina Fellowship at the UCSF

Both Dr Rajbir Singh and Dr Preetam Singh have their favourite hobbies despite their heavy professional commitments Dr Rajbir Singh is an avid wood worker and has a neat little workshop of his own where he sits at weekends and enjoys carving out of beautifully designed and finished models of dainty toys and curios Dr Preetam Singh is a keen aviator and linguist He is equally proficient in spoken and written German He is also a talented artist and a painter a facet unknown to most

The hospital has grown over the years One of the earliest associates have been Dr H L Khanna a medical specialist par excellence who takes care of the systemic medical conditions of the patients who have to undergo surgery

Other highly qualified consultants have joined the hospital in recent years are Dr HPS Migalni who runs the squint clinic Dr Sophia who is a specialist in retinal medicine Dr Jatinder Singh who is a vitreoretinal specialist with a remarkable academic bent of mind Dr Kanwardeep Singh who is in charge of laboratory services And not the least the hospital has a set of highly experienced optometrists Mrs Neelam Sharma Mrs Sawinder Kaur and Miss Kusum Lata This is the only hospital in NorthWestern India which has Retinal Consultants who have been formally trained in prestigious institutions like the University of California San Franscisco Sankara Nethralaya Chennai and Aravind Eye Hospital Madurai

The hospital offers a special year long fellowship training program in VitreoRetina and has already imparted training to doctors from various parts of the country as well as those from places as far away as Tashkent in Uzbekistan The hospital enjoys the privilege of hosting visiting Ophthalmologists from other countries such as USA UK Pakistan

Personal comforts and conveniences of patients receive special attention at the hands of the hospital staff In the words of the hospital administrator Sh Mohinder Pal it is made clear to everyone who takes up service in this hospital that the patients needs and comforts must receive maximum attention to the exclusion of every other consideration The hospital has special provisions for poor patients who cannot afford the usual cost of treatment

In the light of ever growing needs and demands of its patients the hospital is planning yet another uptodate set up at a suitable place outside the walled city

History

Dr Sohan Singh was born in November 1882 in the village of Sahowala District Sialkot in undivided India His father Dr Jagat Singh was a medic in the British Indian Army who also served for a while in Burma and in the northwest frontier areas of Waziristan

Sohan Singh received his primary education in the village school at Sahowala from 1889 to 1894 where one of his early mentors Maulvi Gulam Qadir who taught him Urdu became a family friend and used to visit the family in Amritsar when the family moved there

After receiving secondary education from Government High School in Sialkot from 1894 to 1900 Sohan Singh joined the DAV College Lahore and completed his Intermediate FSC medical group from 1900 to 1902

He joined the King Edward Medical College Lahore thereafter 1902 to 1907 and had a brilliant academic career in which he stood first in all the five years of his medical studies and was the recipient of the Burton Brown Medal in Medicine in 1907He earned his Diploma of LMS Licentiate of Medicine and Surgery from the Punjab University in the same year

Sohan Singhs father Dr Jagat Singh was a strict disciplinarian and expected the children to be strictly truthful The family was also very religious and Sohan Singh remembers visiting the village Gurdwara with his grandfather Nanak Singh when he was just four years old Religious as the family was Sohan Singh while studying in Lahore 1900 to 1907 was deeply influenced by the Singh Sabha Movement at that time and incorporated the daily habit of reciting some Shabads from the Guru Granth Sahib and lived by the advice contained therein a habit he continued throughout life

Dr Sohan Singh joined the Provincial Civil Medical Services PCMS in 1907 and retired as VicePrincipal Medical School Amritsar in 1939In this span of 32 years he was House Surgeon Eye Wards Mayo Hospital Lahore from 1908 to 1910 and after joining the teaching staff of Medical College Lahore in 1910Demonstrator Anatomy from 1910 to 1914Lecturer and Senior Demonstrator from 1914 to 1920Lecturer Anatomy Medical School Amritsar from 1920 to 1922 Lecturer Diseases of Eye Ear Nose and Throat Medical School Amritsar from 1929 to 1939

Dr Sohan Singh was conferred the title of Sardar Sahib in 1924 and the title of Sardar Bahadur in 1938 by the British Indian Government and was also appointed Honorary Assistant Surgeon to the Viceroy of India from 1937 to 1939 in recognition of his outstanding contribution towards the alleviation of blindness due to eye diseases in northern India In 1956 he received the Padam Shree award from the first President of independent India Dr Rajinder Prasad

Apart from these honors Dr Sohan Singh was also a recipient of the King Georges V Silver Jubilee medal in 1935 and King Georges VI Coronation medal in 1937He also received the Sword of Honour from the Governing Council of the Khalsa College Amritsar in 1958

Dr Sohan Singh was also a philanthropist and a social worker and was deeply involved in charitable work Apart from free consultations he conducted thousands of free eye operations at various places more notably at Ambala and at the Central Khalsa Hospital in Tarn Taran He was a truly gifted surgeon and was a master at the Smiths tumbling technique for Cataract Surgery using a von Graefes knife

He kept himself abreast with the latest developments in the field of eye surgery and visited Europe in 1933 and spent three months in various hospitals in Vienna Berlin Paris and London A Zeiss slit lamp biomicroscope and a diathermy machine which he brought back are a testimony to his eagerness to bring state of the art equipment and skills to India

Dr Sohan Singh was also an avid horse rider and his love for fine Arab horses was well known He would purchase young mares at the annual horse fairs during Baisakhi or Diwali and would train the horses himself During the early years of his medical career he always rode to the Victoria Jubilee VJ hospital on horseback from Khalsa College where his father lived Later when motor cars came to India automobiles became his passion

Apart from Punjabi Urdu and English Dr Sohan Singh was also fluent in Farsi and would speak to his patients from Afghanistan in Farsi He was also interested in learning Arabic and the jovial Arabic teacher from the Khalsa College namely Murtaza Hussian would often visit him at home to brush up his Arabic skills

At a personal level Dr Sohan Singh led a very simple family life His wife Sardarni Kartar Kaur maiden name Gurdevan though an ordinary village lady from Daska near Sahowal was an extremely gentle lady and a sea of wisdom even though she had no formal education

Dr Sohan Singh passed away on April 5th 1961 after a brief illness of a few months during which time he was nursed by his daughterinlaw Dr Rajinder Kaur He was cheerful alert and conscious till the last and even from his sick bed he dictated translations of selected passages from the Guru Granth Sahib which appeared in the form of a booklet just a few weeks before his death