The country’s premier medical institute, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), is all set to weed out crowds from its packed out-patient departments (OPD) and ensure that only one attendant is allowed with a patient and doctors are given a crowd-free environment to examine them.
The institute is all set to inaugurate its 100 new OPD registration counters right at the main entrance, which will now be used to check, and regulate the crowds going into the OPDs.
This massive latest addition of registration counters will be initially started for those booking appointments online for OPDs.
Explained AIIMS deputy director (administration) V. Srinivas: “These counters are initially for those who come in with online registration. We will issue them token and then guide them to the various OPDs in a manner where their waiting time at the OPD is less and we have control over who is being allowed inside.”
Another senior official explained that AIIMS hope to slowly integrate this facility for all the OPD patients coming to the hospital.
This will include those who register on line and the spot patients. “The hospital sees among the highest intake of OPD patients in a day across the country and crowd management is a huge issued at AIIMS. We often see an entire family coming in with one patient which not only creates an artificial crowd but also exposes them to multiple infections.”
Doctors at the institute, too, have welcomed the move stating that they will now have “more and regulated quality time to examine their patients.”
“At OPDs a single doctor is hard pressed for time because of the sheer volume of patients he has to cater to. The atmosphere gets further tense because of the in-patient crowds and the mismanagement. Too many people in an area often don’t allow doctors to concentrate and give in their 100 per cent. We welcome the move,” said a senior resident at AIIMS.
An additional waiting area is also being constructed near the registration counter which will ensure that patients are not allowed to wait inside the OPDs.
“What we will be telling the patient is that instead of waiting in OPDs you wait outside the main hospital and we will guide you to the right OPD and to the right room number and ensure that you get the best treatment at the earliest without having to jostle and suffer for it,” said an AIIMS official.
We often see an entire family coming in with one patient which not only creates an artificial crowd but also exposes them to multiple infections
We often see an entire family coming in with one patient which not only creates an artificial crowd but also exposes them to multiple infections
