Bhubaneswar AIIMS will start from Sept 30: Azad

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Thursday assured Health Minister Prasanna Acharya to start academic session of Bhubaneswar AIIMS from September 30.

Acharya told this to TNIE from New Delhi after attending a meeting of representatives of the six states where AIIMS-like institutes are coming up.

The decision was taken at the review meeting presided over by the Union Health Minister. Health Ministers of Bihar, Odisha and Uttarakhand and Health Secretaries of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were present. Academic session and admissions in all the new institutes will start by September-end.

Acharya said the Government has decided to promulgate an ordinance for starting these institutes. The institutes will be attached to the nearest 300-bed Government hospitals till the time the regular hospitals of the Institutes are functional. The hospitals of the AIIMS-Bhubaneswar is likely to be made operational by next year.

This year AIIMS-Bhubaneswar will start with only 50 students and the undergraduate medical students of AIIMS will do their practical at the Capital Hospital here. The number of MBBS seats will be increased to 100 when the infrastructure in these institutes come up, the meeting decided.

Acharya requested Azad to expedite steps to start academic session in AIIMS-Bhubaneswar from August and provide necessary manpower, including academic faculties, for the institute.

He also demanded a National Cancer Institute and a National Human Organ Transplantation Institute in the State. Acharya urged the Union Minister to provide more financial assistance to the State to develop district headquarters hospitals in 12 backward districts.

He also demanded before the Centre to increase 100 medical seats each in VSS Medical College and Hospital, Burla, and MKCG Medical College and Hospital, Berhampur. Azad assured Acharya to look into the demands.

The meeting reviewed the progress of the institutes set up with Central assistance. At least 80 per cent of work in Phase-I is completed in five of the institutes. Only the one at Raipur is lagging behind.