AIIMS vows to make campus drug free, issues directions

New Delhi: To make the All India Institute of Medical Sciences-Delhi campus free of drug abuse, the hospital administration on Tuesday issued directions for sensitisation of staff members and students about various punitive provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

In an office memorandum, AIIMS Director M Srinivas asked all heads of departments to bring to the attention of the staff and students working under them the various provisions including that of fine and imprisonment under the NDPS Act.

He also instructed all security personnel not to allow patients, attendants, visitors and staff members to use drugs, in any form, in the hospital premises.

If outside personnel or any drug peddler found selling above mentioned drugs, the security personnel to be instructed to take video/photograph of the culprit and he/she should be handed over to the police immediately and completely banned from entering the AIIMS premises in near future, according to the memorandum.

Any contractual employee or security staff found indulging in this activity in the hospital premises will be handed over to the AIIMS police post and he or she shall be summary terminated from the service.

"If any permanent employee/doctor found indulging in these drugs in AIIMS New Delhi premises, he/ she will be issued a memo and a disciplinary action shall be taken against him/her," the memorandum

states.

Employees, doctors and students wanting to seek help for substance use problems can still do so in the psychiatry OPD at AIIMS and will be provided treatment while maintaining confidentiality, it stated.

Treatment will not be linked to administrative action or punitive measures. To seek more information on preventive interventions, they could also contact the Students' Wellness Centre, it said.

The memorandum mentioned that the entire world, including many educational institutions, is facing the menace of drug addiction, which has a devastating impact on the addict, individual, family and a large section of

society.

Our main objective intends to reach out to the masses and spread awareness about substance abuse, it said.