PM throws open tunnel between AIIMS, Safdarjung
New Delhi: Giving a boost to healthcare infrastructure in Delhi as well as the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated five major projects at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Safdarjung Hospital.
The PM also inaugurated an underground tunnel connecting JPN Apex Trauma Centre to AIIMS. The 997m-long tunnel will be used to transport critically-ill patients from JPN Apex Trauma Centre to AIIMS, bypassing overhead traffic.
Work on the ambitious project at AIIMS was stalled for nearly two years.
However, with the tunnel becoming fully operational from Friday, it will enable quick transfer of critical patients from the hospital to the AIIMS Trauma Centre in just five minutes.
The work started in 2012 and cost Rs 40 crore. It is the first such project to be implemented in the country, where a road tunnel has been constructed above an operational Metro tunnel with a minimum clearance of 1.6 m.
The height of the tunnel is 4.2 m and the carriageway is seven metres, excluding a footpath of 1.5 metres, according to officials of Delhi Metro.
"At present, the ambulance services transporting patients from AIIMS main campus to the Trauma Centre, located on the congested Ring Road, between Safdarjung Hospital and Bhikaji Cama Place, takes at least 30 minutes during peak traffic hours," said an AIIMS official.
Moreover, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of the long-proposed National Centre for Ageing at AIIMS, a 200-bed super-speciality facility for the elderly, which is targeted to be ready by February 2020.
Commissioned at a cost of Rs 330 crore, the proposed geriatric centre will have 20 ICU beds and provide training and research facility in the field of geriatric medicine.
For enhancement of infrastructure at Safdarjung Hospital, the PM formally inaugurated an 807-bed super speciality and an emergency block having 500 beds, making the Hospital the country's biggest emergency care hospital.
The new emergency block has been developed at a cost of Rs 346 crore, while Rs 920 crore went into the setting up of the super speciality at Safdarjung, which will offer high-end diagnostic healthcare and treatment facilities in major disciplines and has a 228-bedded private ward.
The opening of a 300-bed Power Grid Vishram Sadan (night shelter facility) at AIIMS will bring major relief, especially to outstation patients and relatives.
Besides, a "connecting motorable tunnel" covering about a km between AIIMS, Ansari Nagar and the hospital's Jai Prakash Narayan Trauma Centre will further ease the delivery of healthcare in Delhi.
