Navy commissions its tenth Naval hospital, INHS Sandhani, at Karanja Naval station near Mumbai

NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy on Monday commissioned a hospital ship INHS Sandhani at Naval Station Karanja in Uran in Maharashtra's Raigad district. INHS Sandhani is the tenth Naval Hospital of the Navy. 

Preeti Luthra, President of  Navy Wives Welfare Association (NWWA), Western Region, unveiled the commissioning plaque of the hospital. The Commissioning Warrant was read by the first Commanding Officer of the hospital Surgeon Captain HBS Chaudhry, the Navy said in a release.

The hospital had modest beginnings as a small primary health centre in 1955. With the steady expansion of the Naval station over the last few decades, a need was felt for a multispecialty hospital. The sanction for the same was given by the Ministry of Defence in September 2016.

The facility has been upgraded from 16-bedded to a 30-bedded hospital and aims to provide care in the fields of medicine, surgery, gynaecology, paediatrics, anaesthesia and dental sciences to personnel at Karanja Naval Station. The navy said that the hospital will also "obviate the need for patients, including those with critical ailments and emergency cases, to travel by sea to Mumbai."