Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) is working on a war footing basis to develop the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Patna, so that the patients of the region, including from the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand,who are forced to come to Delhi AIIMS, even for small ailments, can get the same treatment near their homes.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Union minister of state for Health, Ashwini Choubey, said that eight new departments, which will include emergency services, will be made functional at AIIMS Patna within four months.
“Right now there are 18 departments that have OPD facility, which are functioning in AIIMS, Patna. Our endeavour is to make all the other remaining departments fully functional by March next year. For that we have been working on a war footing and are regularly bringing out advertisements to fill in the vacant posts. Also, we have found that many patients of Bihar and the neighbouring areas are not aware of the facilities that are being created in Patna AIIMS due to which they are forced to come to Delhi, AIIMS. We have started a mass media campaign to make people aware of the fact that a majority of the treatment is already available in Patna AIIMS,” Choubey said.
Choubey was targeted by a section of the media after he allegedly stated that “the people of Bihar were unnecessarily crowding AIIMS, Delhi even for minor ailments which can be treated at home”.
However, Choubey, who has also been a health minister in Bihar and is presently an MP from Buxar, told this reporter that a certain section of the media knowingly misconstrued his statement.
“What I said and meant was that the people of Bihar, who are mostly poor, are forced to come to Delhi, spend their life time earnings, sleep on roads even for minor ailments as they wait for the treatment and it is our endeavour to make sure that this stops. MPs from Bihar, including me, have always helped the patients, even asking them to stay in our residences. This way the burden on the doctors in AIIMS, Delhi will also decrease,” he said.
Health ministry officials said that as of now, 50% of the people with complicated diseases are being treated at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Patna, which the ministry wants to reach a level of 90% by the end of March. “Patna AIIMS will start its post graduate courses from July 2018 where there will be an intake for 100 MBBS seats and 60 BSC nursing students and that will help in easing the pressure on AIIMS Delhi. What the minister said was not wrong. We need to end this vicious cirlce where a patient is forced to come to another state, disrupting his daily routine and spend money on treatment and accommodation,” an official of the ministry said.
As a part of the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the MoHFW is also investing Rs 70 crore to set up e-classrooms in different medical colleges including AIIMS, Patna.
The e-classrooms will facilitate medical teachings across medical colleges via video conferencing.
The ministry is also working towards connecting every hospital in India, especially AIIMS through tele-medicine by 2019.
As of now, work in six AIIMS, Rishikesh, Bhubhaneshwar, Raipur, Patna, Bhopal and Jodhpur was going rapidly and once they become fully functional by 2018, they will have almost 4808 beds among them. As of now OPD facilities are available only in Rishikesh, Bhubhaneshwar and Bhopal.