OPD At Bathinda AIIMS To Start Today

After missing several deadlines, the much-awaited OPD services in 12 departments at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bathinda, will kick start on Monday.

A ₹925-crore centrally-funded project, the Bathinda AIIMS was approved under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana in July 2016 and its foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 25, 2016.

The institute will provide super-specialty and affordable healthcare facilities to the people in the south Malwa region.

The OPD services will be inaugurated by Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Monday. Bathinda MP and Union food processing industry minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Punjab health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu and minister for medical education and research Om Prakash Soni, besides former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal will be present at the inaugural function.

The premier healthcare institute will not only cater to needs of Punjab but also Sirsa and Fatehabad districts of neighbouring Haryana and Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh districts of Rajasthan. Director, post graduate institute of medical education and research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, Dr Jagat Ram will be the officiating director of the new AIIMS while process for selecting the full-time director is on.

The OPDs in the department of orthopaedic, general surgery, including surgical oncology and urologist paediatric surgery consultation, general medicine, ENT, ophthalmology, psychiatry, dermatology, gynaecology and obstetrics, dental, radiology (X- Ray, ultrasound and colour doppler, basic bio-chemistry and basic haematology will be launched on Monday.

With the lack of affordable healthcare services in the region, patients had to go to Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment Institute at Bikaner in Rajasthan. The train from Bathinda to Bikaner still carries the tag of the ‘cancer train’. The Advanced Cancer Diagnostic Treatment and Research Centre set up by previous SAD-BJP government also couldn’t serve the purpose due to lack of doctors and facilities.

FACULTY, STAFF RECRUITED

Dr Sameer Aggarwal, a senior faculty member at the PGIMER, Chandigarh, and nodal officer for Bathinda AIIMS, said that recruitment of faculty and staff has been done as per requirement. “MBBS classes for the batch of 100 students will also start from August 2020 on the campus. However, the emergency and in-door facility will start by November 2020,” he said.

Classes of the first batch of 50 MBBS students of the institute have already started at Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot, this year, which will be shifted to main campus from next year, he added.

Physiologist and public health activist Dr Vitull K Gupta said the institute will prove a game-changer in context of healthcare services in the region. “The people of region had to rush to private hospitals in Ludhiana or PGIMER, Chandigarh, for quality healthcare services, but with AIIMS, they wouldn’t need to do so,” he said.

WAS INITIALLY WAS PLANNED IN DOABA

After then Union health minister Harsh Vardhan sanctioned AIIMS for Punjab in 2014, the then SAD-BJP government had identified a land for setting up the institute in Kapurthala district of the Doaba region. However, Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who is daughter-in-law of then CM Parkash Singh Badal, pushed for setting up the institute in the Malwa region of the state. Finally, the state government decided to set up the AIIMS at Bathinda. The shifting of project from Doaba to Malwa was criticised by the Congress.

AKALIS GEAR UP FOR SHOW

Even as Punjab health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu and medical education and research minister Om Prakash Soni are scheduled to be part of event, Akali leaders are too gearing up for a show of strength on this occasion. Some Akali leaders were seen at AIIMS site on Saturday to check the ongoing preparations for holding a rally to mark the occasion.

POLITICAL SLUGFEST OVER INSTITUTE

The institute also witnessed bitter political slugfest between the SAD and Congress. Harsimrat time and again blamed the Congress government for delaying the project by not granting sanctions. “The lack of interest shown by the state government in the institute can be seen from the fact that no Congress minister, including Bathinda MLA and finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, or any other Congress leader ever visited the project site,” she had blamed. Manpreet, however, refuted the allegations saying the AIIMS is entirely a central government project and Punjab government has given timely nod for whatever is required on its part.-Hindustan Times