Increased patient inflow at the country’s premier All-India Institute of Medical Sciences here has forced it to announce that it is looking at setting up a separate facility to cater to out-patients to ease the patient load at the main hospital.
Addressing a press conference on Saturday to announce that the 40th AIIMS annual Convocation would be held this Tuesday, Institute director Dr. R.C. Deka said: “We have already started work on the Jhajjar campus in Haryana and we are looking at building an out-patient department at Masjid Moth. The Institute has witnessed a growing number of patients totally dependent on AIIMS for their medical requirements. This has caused a lot of stress on the hospital and its staff and forced us to look at de-congesting the main hospital and offer primary care at an out-patient area outside AIIMS.”
“The Institute is also planning to develop a world class centre of excellence in areas like infectious diseases, molecular medicine, nutrition, control of non-communicable diseases including cancer, vaccine development and regenerative sciences,” he said.
The director announced that new post-graduate courses were started last year in pulmonary medicine, surgical oncology and geriatric medicine.
Speaking about the convocation, Dr. Deka said that President Pranab Mukherjee will deliver the keynote address and present degrees to 465 medical professionals. “Under the short-term training scheme, the Institute provided post-graduate training to 42 foreign nationals including eight World Health Organisation fellows. Forty-nine foreign graduates have also undergone elective training at AIIMS during the year. Also, 632 research projects are in progress and they brought extramural funds of Rs. 65.4 crore which is 25 per cent increase from last years funds,” he added.
