Sassoon Hospital

Sassoon General Hospital is a large state-run hospital in Pune, Maharashtra, India. It has a Medical College and a Nurses training School attached to it. At present it has over 500 beds.

The Jewish philanthropist David Sassoon from Mumbai made a generous donation to make the construction of the hospital possible in 1867. The hospital could originally accommodate 144 patients.

A well-respected child-care center and orphanage, Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospitals (SOFOSH), is connected to the hospital. SOFOSH was started in August 1964 by a group of Pune citizens for the welfare of poor patients of Sassoon Hospitals. Child care activities were initiated in 1973. SOFOSH’s child care center, "Shreevatsa", has provided a home to orphan children ranging from newborns to six-year-olds. Many of the children are placed with adoptive families in India and overseas. A number of children are physically and mentally challenged and a growing number are afflicted by life threatening ailments. Many of these children will never find adoptive families, and are cared for by the SOFOSH "Preetanjali" project.



Trivia

 * Meher Baba was born in Sassoon Hospital in 1894.
 * Sassoon Hospital, which treats 4,000 to 4,500 dog bite cases per month, recorded a maximum of 5,758 stray dog bite cases in May 1999.