India’s dream of making healthcare more affordable and accessible by opening of 6 new All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) may get further delayed as private consulting companies who were engaged with the government for monitoring the construction works of new AIIMS have left, leaving hospitals construction work in the lurch.
All 6 new AIIMS were to be fully functional by the end of 2012 with a sanctioned bed capacity of 960; however, none of the hospitals is close to even 25 <g data-gr-id="39">per cent</g> of the expected strengths even after almost over four years of their operations.
The deadline has already been extended two times before. The unfinished project of construction and other several factors have hit the productivity of AIIMS very badly. Super specialty services have not been started in AIIMS Jodhpur, Raipur and Bhopal while in Bhubaneswar and Rishikesh it has started partly. All 6 AIIMS hospitals are supposed to be running with 15 super speciality departments.
Sunil Sharma, Joint Secretary, Health & Family Welfare, tells Millennium Post that few consulting companies who were assigned the task of completing the construction works of AIIMS have left the project without completing it.
“The department is mulling the required steps to introduce a new plan to execute the unfinished work. In a couple of weeks’ time we will come up with the new plan,” said Sharma.
He added that: “The delayed construction work has affected the <g data-gr-id="46">healthcare</g> system in all hospitals as required departments could not be opened without construction work being complete as it has to be in unison.” However, he refused to comment on any final deadline for completion of the remaining works.
“AIIMS Rishikesh is operational with only 16 departments including two super speciality departments out of the sanctioned 53. There are three blocks namely OPD block, hospital block and college block in all AIIMS. However, in Rishikesh, the hospital block is yet to be completed,” says AIIMS official.
AIIMS Jodhpur is functional with only 25 departments and with 62 faculties out of sanctioned strength of 305. Dr Sanjeev Mishra, AIIMS Director, Jodhpur responded on the delay of opening the required departments and said that the departments would be started in multiple stages as the construction of buildings was still underway.
“We have already started the selection process for 212 faculty members to open few more departments. It may take few more months,” adds Dr Mishra.
Making no exception, AIIMS Raipur is running with only 22 departments out of 41 and 61 faculties in all <g data-gr-id="40">pre clinical</g>, <g data-gr-id="41">para clinical</g> and clinical departments whereas sanctioned strength of faculties are 305.
Prof Nitin Madhusudan, Director of AIIMS Raipur said: “Almost 70 per cent work has been completed and we are committed to open few more departments as the selection process for 133 faculty members is underway. As soon as we finalise the selection we will have all the departments in <g data-gr-id="42">functional</g> state.”