deemag and chest clinic

Public and private hospitals that were founded, built, led, or significantly shaped by Padma Award-winning doctors.

One important correction before we build the chapter: not every hospital you named is itself “a Padma-awardee hospital.” The connection is through the doctors associated with it. For example, Dr. Naresh Trehan is a Padma Bhushan/Padma Shri awardee associated with Medanta; Dr. D. Nageshwar Reddy is a Padma Vibhushan awardee associated with AIG; Dr. S. S. Badrinath was a Padma Bhushan awardee and founded Sankara Nethralaya; and Dr. G. Natchiar, Dr. G. Venkataswamy and Dr. P. Namperumalsamy connect the Aravind system with Padma awards. �
Padma Doctors Forum +3
Also, your Lari Cardiology example is particularly interesting: Lari Cardiology Centre at King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, was developed through the efforts of Padma Shri Dr. Mansoor Hasan, after he was struck by the long queues of patients from Uttar Pradesh at AIIMS Delhi. KGMU itself records that the cardiology department was established in 1977 and moved to its present location following a donation from M. A. Lari. �
KGMU +1
Here is the kind of story structure I would recommend for your book:
Writing
The Hospitals Built by Visionaries
A Journey Through India’s Padma-Awarded Medical Legacy
India’s medical story is not merely a story of buildings, machines, operating theatres and beds. It is a story of people.
Behind some of the country’s most respected hospitals are doctors who looked beyond their individual careers. They saw a problem in society, imagined a different kind of institution and then spent decades turning that imagination into reality.
Some received the Padma Shri. Some received the Padma Bhushan. A few rose to the Padma Vibhushan. But the real measure of their contribution was not the medal placed around their neck. It was the institution they left behind—and the millions of patients who walked through its doors.
This is the story of that medical India.
The First Lesson: A Hospital Begins With a Problem
There is a remarkable similarity in the stories of many great Indian hospitals.
A doctor sees something that should not be happening.
A poor patient cannot afford treatment.
A family must travel hundreds of kilometres for a specialist.
A blind person has no access to an eye surgeon.
A patient with liver disease has nowhere in India to receive world-class treatment.
A heart patient waits in a queue because there is no cardiac centre in his region.
And then a doctor decides that merely treating the next patient is not enough.
The doctor decides to build an institution.
That is how some of India’s greatest hospitals began.
Chapter One
Medanta — When a Surgeon Dreamed Beyond the Operating Table
Few names illustrate the transformation of Indian private healthcare as vividly as Medanta – The Medicity in Gurugram.
At the centre of its story stands Dr. Naresh Trehan, a cardiovascular and cardiothoracic surgeon who received both the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan.
For decades, Dr. Trehan worked at the highest levels of cardiac surgery, including extensive experience in the United States. But his larger ambition was not simply to become a famous surgeon.
It was to create an institution in India where different medical disciplines could come together under one roof.
Medanta became part of that vision.
The hospital represents an important stage in the evolution of Indian private healthcare: the movement from individual specialist practice towards integrated, highly specialised medical institutions.
Around Medanta grew departments devoted to heart disease, cancer, neurosciences, liver transplantation, kidney care, orthopaedics and many other specialties.
Other Padma-awarded physicians have also been associated with the institution. Dr. Ashok Vaid, for example, has been associated with Medanta’s cancer programme, while Dr. Ambrish Mithal, another Padma Bhushan awardee, served as Chairman of Endocrinology and Diabetes at Medanta before later moving to Max Healthcare.
Medanta therefore tells more than one story.
It tells the story of a surgeon.
It tells the story of a team.
And it tells the story of India’s growing confidence that world-class medicine could be created within India itself.
Chapter Two
Apollo — The Hospital That Helped Change Indian Private Healthcare
If Medanta represents one important chapter in India’s modern hospital story, Apollo represents an even earlier turning point.
The Apollo model helped establish the idea that advanced private healthcare could be organised on a large institutional scale in India.
Over the years, many distinguished doctors have worked within the Apollo system.
The connection with Padma-awarded medicine continues into the present generation. Apollo itself reported that in the 2026 Padma Awards, Dr. K. R. Palaniswamy of Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, received the Padma Bhushan for his contributions to gastroenterology, therapeutic endoscopy and medical education.
The significance of Apollo is therefore not simply the number of hospitals carrying the name.
It is the creation of a national medical ecosystem in which specialist doctors, nurses, technicians, researchers and administrators could work together at a scale previously difficult to imagine.
Chapter Three
AIG — The Gastroenterologist Who Built an Institution
In Hyderabad, another remarkable story unfolded.
Dr. D. Nageshwar Reddy became one of India’s most recognised gastroenterologists and was eventually honoured with the Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.
But his contribution cannot be understood only by counting procedures or awards.
His larger legacy is institutional.
The Asian Institute of Gastroenterology grew into AIG Hospitals, creating a major centre devoted to digestive and liver diseases and subsequently expanding into a broader super-specialty hospital.
AIG’s own material records Dr. D. Nageshwar Reddy’s Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan honours, and describes AIG Hospitals as a major 800-bed super-specialty institution.
The story is important because it demonstrates a recurring Indian medical pattern:
A specialist becomes a pioneer.
The pioneer builds a department.
The department becomes an institute.
The institute becomes a hospital.
And eventually the hospital becomes a school for the next generation.
That is how medical knowledge becomes an institution.
Chapter Four
Lari Cardiology — A Government Hospital Born From a Patient Queue
Perhaps one of the most moving stories in this entire journey belongs to Lucknow.
Dr. Mansoor Hasan was a young doctor when he encountered something that stayed with him.
At AIIMS Delhi, he saw patients from Uttar Pradesh standing in long queues for cardiac treatment.
They had travelled enormous distances.
Many were poor.
Some had nowhere else to go.
The question that emerged was simple:
Why should a patient from Uttar Pradesh have to travel all the way to Delhi for heart treatment?
The answer was not another private clinic.
It was a cardiac centre in Lucknow.
Dr. Mansoor Hasan became the driving force behind the creation of Lari Cardiology Centre at King George’s Medical University.
The centre was established in 1977. KGMU records that the department later developed into a major cardiac facility with cardiac catheterisation laboratories and interventional cardiology services.
In 2011, Dr. Mansoor Hasan received the Padma Shri.
The story of Lari is important because it shows another side of India’s medical history.
Not every great institution was created by a businessman.
Some were born from a doctor’s frustration at seeing patients suffer.
Lari Cardiology is therefore not merely a building.
It is an answer to a question:
Why should geography decide whether a person receives lifesaving medical care?
Chapter Five
Sankara Nethralaya — The Doctor Who Refused to Accept Blindness as Destiny
Then comes ophthalmology.
In Chennai, Dr. S. S. Badrinath created Sankara Nethralaya in 1978.
He would later receive the Padma Bhushan.
His vision was ambitious: comprehensive eye care, high standards of medicine, academic training, research and service to people from every section of society.
The institution grew into one of India’s best-known eye-care centres.
Dr. Badrinath’s story is particularly important because ophthalmology in India was transformed by the development of specialised departments and systematic training. A published account of his life describes how he helped establish subspecialty practice in Indian ophthalmology at a time when it was scarcely developed.
The story of Sankara Nethralaya therefore becomes a story about more than eyesight.
It becomes a story about specialisation.
About research.
About training.
And about the belief that sophisticated medicine should not be reserved for a privileged few.
Chapter Six
Aravind — The Hospital System That Took the Fight Against Blindness to the Masses
If Sankara Nethralaya tells the story of excellence and specialisation, the Aravind Eye Care System tells another extraordinary story:
How can high-quality eye care reach millions?
Dr. G. Venkataswamy—known affectionately as Dr. V—was the founder of Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai.
He received the Padma Shri.
Dr. P. Namperumalsamy later received the Padma Shri in 2007.
And in 2024, Dr. G. Natchiar, a founding member and senior leader of the Aravind system, received the Padma Shri.
The President of India’s citation for Dr. Natchiar records that Aravind Eye Hospital was established in 1976 with the mission of eliminating needless blindness by providing high-quality, compassionate and affordable eye care. It also records the remarkable expansion of the Aravind system into a network of eye hospitals, village vision centres, community eye clinics, research and training institutions.
Aravind’s genius was not simply surgical.
It was organisational.
The institution asked a question that has implications far beyond ophthalmology:
How can a hospital provide excellent care while remaining accessible to ordinary people?
The answer became a model studied around the world.
Chapter Seven
The Government Institutions — Where India Trained Its Doctors
Alongside these private and charitable institutions stands another enormous pillar of Indian medicine:
the government hospital and medical-college system.
AIIMS New Delhi.
King George’s Medical University.
Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences.
PGIMER Chandigarh.
JIPMER.
Government Medical College systems across the states.
These institutions have produced and trained generations of doctors who later established private hospitals, specialist institutes and national medical programmes.
The relationship between government medicine and private medicine is therefore not a simple competition.
It is a continuum.
A doctor may study at a government institution, teach there, develop a specialty there, establish a department, later join a private hospital and eventually create an institution of his or her own.
India’s medical ecosystem grew through this movement of knowledge.
Chapter Eight
The Other Great Names
The story does not end with Medanta, Apollo, AIG, Lari, Sankara Nethralaya and Aravind.
A complete book should also examine institutions connected with Padma-awarded doctors such as:
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi
Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, New Delhi
Max Super Speciality Hospital, New Delhi
Asian Institute of Medical Sciences, Faridabad
Bombay Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Mumbai
Shroff Eye Centre, New Delhi
Centre for Sight, New Delhi
AIIMS New Delhi
PGIMER Chandigarh
SGPGI Lucknow
King George’s Medical University, Lucknow
Christian Medical College, Vellore
Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai
Narayana Health
Manipal Hospitals
Amrita Hospital
Narayana Nethralaya
L. V. Prasad Eye Institute
and other major specialist institutions.
The connection with Padma-awarded doctors must, however, be established doctor by doctor rather than assumed simply because a famous hospital appears on a list.
For example, the Padma Doctors Forum identifies Padma-awarded physicians associated with Medanta, Fortis Escorts, Sir Ganga Ram, Max, AIIMS, Bombay Hospital and other institutions.
Chapter Nine
The Eye Hospitals: A Parallel Revolution
India’s eye-care story deserves an entire section of its own.
Sankara Nethralaya.
Aravind Eye Hospitals.
L. V. Prasad Eye Institute.
Narayana Nethralaya.
Sankara Eye Hospitals.
Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospitals.
Centre for Sight.
These institutions represent different organisational models, but together they demonstrate how ophthalmology became one of India’s strongest examples of specialist healthcare.
A recent national hospital ranking placed AIIMS Delhi, L. V. Prasad Eye Institute, Sankara Nethralaya and Aravind among leading ophthalmology institutions.
The Padma connection is especially strong at Aravind and Sankara Nethralaya.
This is why an Indian medical history written through Padma-awarded doctors cannot ignore ophthalmology.
Chapter Ten
Fertility Medicine and the New India
Fertility and IVF represent a different generation of Indian healthcare.
Institutions such as Indira IVF and other major fertility networks have expanded access to assisted reproductive technology across the country.
But here we must be especially careful.
Unlike Aravind, Sankara Nethralaya, AIG or Lari Cardiology, where there are clearly documented historical connections between the institution and Padma-awarded doctors, Indira IVF should not automatically be described as a hospital founded or led by a Padma Award recipient without a specific, verifiable doctor-to-award connection.
That distinction matters in a serious book.
A book about Padma-awarded doctors should never turn an association into a fact.
It should tell the truth—and let the truth make the story powerful.
The Larger Story
When these institutions are placed next to one another, something remarkable appears.
India’s medical revolution did not come from one model.
It came from many models.
The government teaching hospital.
The charitable hospital.
The specialist institute.
The private super-specialty hospital.
The eye-care network.
The cardiac institute.
The cancer centre.
The transplant institute.
The fertility network.
The medical college.
The research institution.
And behind many of them stood doctors who had received India’s highest civilian recognition.
But the Padma medal was not the destination.
It was a footnote to a much larger journey.
Dr. Mansoor Hasan saw patients travelling from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi and helped create Lari Cardiology in Lucknow.
Dr. S. S. Badrinath saw the need for advanced, comprehensive eye care and created Sankara Nethralaya.
Dr. G. Venkataswamy created a model through which eye care could reach enormous numbers of people.
Dr. D. Nageshwar Reddy transformed gastroenterology into an institutional enterprise at AIG.
Dr. Naresh Trehan built Medanta around the idea of integrated advanced healthcare.
And generations of doctors working in AIIMS, KGMU, PGIMER, SGPGI, CMC Vellore and other teaching institutions built the human capital on which the entire system depended.
Their stories are different.
Their specialties are different.
Their institutions are different.
But their central idea is remarkably similar:
A doctor can save one life.
A great institution can save generations.
That is perhaps the real story behind India’s Padma-awarded medical pioneers.
The medal belongs to the doctor.
But the legacy belongs to the hospital.
For the book, I would make this much bigger and more rigorous. In particular, I can build a 50–100+ hospital master list, divided into Government / Private / Charitable / Specialist, and for each hospital give city, specialty, founder or key Padma-awardee doctor, Padma award/year, and the exact historical connection. That would avoid incorrectly attributing hospitals such as Indira IVF to Padma awardees merely because they are major medical institutions. The official Padma database is the right foundation for that verification. �
dashboard-padmaawards.gov.in