AIIMS Bhubaneswar to be inaugurated today

The stage is set for the formal inauguration of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Wednesday amid plans to make it a centre of excellence in medical education, health care and research.

The premier institute is slated to be inaugurated by Union Health and Family Welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad while Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik would be the chief guest, Director of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar, Dr A K Mahapatra said.  Since the start of academic session for the first batch of MBBS students in September 2012 with intake of 50 students, AIIMS-Bhubaneswar now has 135 beds including 10 ICU beds, 30 for casualty and six recovery beds, he said adding by the end of this year the hospital is expected to have about 600 beds.

"By June, 2015, we are likely to achieve the target of having a 978-bedded hospital," Mahapatra said. Stating that the AIIMS, Bhubaneswar was among the six new AIIMS planned under the centre's Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Surakshya Yojana (PMSSY), he said these were meant to correct the regional imbalances in quality tertiary healthcare. While the second batch of 100 MBBS students joined the institute in August last, 60 students were enrolled into the BSc (Nursing) course in September last and about 50 resident doctors are taken on strength till date to facilitate patient care as well as teaching and training, Mahapatra said. At present, there are 69 faculty members from 26 different disciplines at AIIMS-Bhubaneswar. The hospital has three functional operation theatres till date and more than 50 operations have been carried out so far, he said.

The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMSes) are a group of autonomous public medical colleges of higher education. AIIMS New Delhi, the fore-runner parent excellence institution, was established in 1956.