The Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) is all set to start a new institute on the city’s outskirts.
Master’s in Public Health (MPH) course will be conducted in the institute which will come up on a 50-acre campus near Bheemanakuppe in Kengeri hobli. Thrust will be given to research activities in the institute.
Announcing this at a press conference here on Monday, RGUHS Registrar D. Prem Kumar said the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Public Health and Centre for Diseases Control would be built at an estimated cost of Rs. 56 crore through internal funding. The work could be completed in a year. The centre was planned along the lines of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, U.S. The course would be open to all Ayush, dental and medical graduates with an aim to create postgraduates who would help in creating awareness, he added.
K.S. Nagesh, Director of the new centre, said the institute would initially focus on compiling statistics from the State. As for the MPH course, he said it would begin either from January or March 2014 in a building near the Jayanagar campus and would be a superior version of the existing public health programmes in affiliated colleges of the university. The first intake will be 10. The course would later be shifted to the new campus.
Course
The first year would have a foundation course. In the second year, one segment would be dedicated to field projects and another for specialisation. Disaster management, health laws, and global health education would be among the subjects to choose from.
Asked if the Bheemanakuppe campus will replace the Jayanagar campus, Registrar (Evaluation) N.S. Ashok Kumar said it was possible, but as a gradual process.
The new campus, according to the master plan, will have buildings dedicated for an advance research laboratory, a guest house, hostel for research students and a conference hall.
The foundation stone laying ceremony for the new campus is slated for Friday in which Governor H.R. Bhardwaj, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Assistant Director General of World Health Organization Rudiger Krech, Union Minister for Minority Affairs K. Rahman Khan and Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil are expected to participate.
