The Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS) was designed on the lines of All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi to provide super speciality care to the common man but it is not yet ready in full measure and there are plans to privatise its services which should not be allowed, former Minister Konathala Ramakrishna said after a visit to the institute on Monday.
VIMS was planned and started when the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was Chief Minster in 2008 but later on it had seen little progress and seen many twists and turns with strong efforts made to hand it over to private parties.
Only six months ago the present TDP government started some services. Only six blocks were completed while work on nine more has not commenced. The latest effort of the government was to privatise some wings, Mr. Ramakrishna said while recalling how VIMS has taken shape.
“If VIMS is ready in full measure and provide service as a government institution it will immensely benefit people of not only the north Andhra districts but also of East Godavari, West Godavari and neighbouring States. However, the government is not making any efforts to make it fully functional and this neglect indicated its attitude towards the north coastal Andhra area. Government spends thousands of crores of rupees to create medical services in Amaravati capital area but is not willing to spare Rs. 90 crore to make VIMS fully functional”, he said.
Earlier he went round all blocks of VIMS and inquired about the facilities there with Director of VIMS P.V. Sudhakar and interacted with the patients.
Later, Dr. Sudhakar said there are nine departments at present in the hospital and there was a proposal to run 10 more departments with the help of private parties which would treat patients under the NTR Arogya Seva scheme.
