Hand New District Hospital Wing to AIIMS-Like Institute: UP Health Minister

UP health minister Sidharth Nath Singh has reportedly written to the Union health ministry to hand over the upcoming building of the district hospital in Sector 39 to an AIIMS-like institute. Noida MLA Pankaj Singh also said he had recently raised the issue with the chief secretary and chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The issue assumes importance ahead of the 2019 general election as extending the services of AIIMS to Noida was the BJP’s manifesto for the Assembly polls. After becoming MLA, Pankaj Singh had written to the CM in March 2017, suggesting that super-specialty pediatric hospital and post-graduate teaching institute (SSPHPGTI) be handed over to AIIMS. However, the proposal did not work out as AIIMS apparently objected to the old staff working there. The MLA said the proposal to hand over the new district hospital building to AIIMS was hence the “second option”. “We’ve to see how the center wants to take it up. I had suggested this in a meeting with the health minister and the medical education minister, Ashutosh Tandon. They’ve been positive about the proposal,” Singh told TOI.

Pankaj Singh said he had also written to the Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate in November, following which the latter had written a letter to UP chief secretary Anup Chandra Pandey, principal secretary SP Goyal, principal secretary (medical health and family welfare) Prashant Trivedi and principal secretary (medical education) Rajnish Dubey. The DM had suggested that the existing SSPHPGTI be “merged” with the Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) in Kasna and the state government can think on handing over the upcoming building of the new district hospital to an AIIMS-like institute later. Confirming that talks on the matter were on, a senior official from health department said the department of medical education had been pursuing the matter with Union health ministry. “The department of medical education of UP has been pursuing the issue,” the official said. – TOI