The Department of Paediatric Surgery, headed by Dr. Rakesh S. Joshi, is the only fully functional and adequately staffed tertiary-care centre for paediatric surgery in Gujarat, serving patients from across the state and neighbouring regions. The department has been functioning since 1979, starting with a few beds within the Department of General Surgery, and has since evolved into a full-fledged neonatal and paediatric surgical service. It runs an M.Ch. residency programme affiliated to Gujarat University with an annual intake of 3 seats.

The 100-bedded department is located in the O3 block of the 1200-bedded Mother, Child and Super-Speciality Hospital on the Civil Hospital campus. It includes 20 Neonatal Surgical ICU beds, 20 Paediatric Surgical ICU beds and 60 beds in the A3 ward, supported by two modular operating theatres and a high-end image-intensifier television system for specialised radiological procedures. Faculty include Dr. Rakesh S. Joshi (Professor and Head), Dr. Jaishri Ramji (Professor), and Assistant Professors Dr. Nirkhi Shah and Dr. Shreyas K.

The department provides 24×7 emergency neonatal and paediatric surgical services. The clinical scope covers all general paediatric surgery, complex single-stage corrections for conditions such as Hirschsprung’s disease, anorectal malformations and bladder exstrophy, alongside specialised work in paediatric urology with reconstructive surgery, thoracic, gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary and neurosurgical conditions (spina bifida, hydrocephalus), minimal-access surgery (laparoscopy and thoracoscopy), endoscopic procedures and onco-surgery. Annual volumes include over 10,000 outpatient attendances, 2,200 admissions, 2,500 surgeries (including 550 neonatal and 450 day-care procedures) and 800 radiological procedures.

A hallmark of the department is its annual International Exstrophy–Epispadias Workshop, conceived in 2009 in collaboration with leading paediatric centres in the United States and Canada. Seventeen workshops have been completed to date, more than 300 patients with bladder exstrophy have been treated, and the department was recognised as a Centre of Excellence for Bladder Exstrophy in January 2020.