AIIMS to provide shelter to patients, relatives in winter

With the slump in the temperature and cold winds sweeping across the national capital, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has geared up to provide night shelters to the patients and their relatives who fail to get a bed and have to camp outside the premiere institution.

Keeping in mind the increasing number of patients turning up for treatment, the hospital has started a new 40-bed night shelter outside its dental centre.

AIIMS already has a 160-bed night shelter located on the campus of the trauma centre being run jointly with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

There is another 500-bed night shelter at the hospital's east campus near Safdarjung hospital.

"This is an issue of great concern. With the decrease in the temperature, more night shelters will be needed for the patients and their kin who do not get a bed in the hospital," M.C. Misra, director, AIIMS, told IANS here Saturday.

AIIMS is constructing a new 200-bed permanent night shelter, which will be ready by 2015, Mishra said.

The hospital has received Rs. 29 crore from the Power Grid Corporation for this purpose.

AIIMS was established Sept 25, 1956, as a referral and research hospital and caters to over 10,000 patients daily.

"The shelters will also be helpful for the patients, who directly after undergoing treatment have to vacate their bed for another patient. This way they will be able to stay in the night shelters and can come back for post treatment checkups to the hospital," said Misra.

He emphasised that with the disease burden in India increasing and the patients turning up at AIIMS for direct treatment, the states should also make residential arrangements for the patients in the national capital.

According to AIIMS, 22 percent of the total patients turning up at the hospital are from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar each. Another 40 percent of the patients come from states like Odisha and Madhya Pradesh. However due to the limited number of beds, they have to either make their own arrangements or else camp outside the hospital.

AIIMS currently has a limit of 2,200 beds.

To accommodate the kin of patients with a severe disease or health complications, it has a 70-bed residential facility at the emergency department and the Cardio Thoracic and Neuro sciences (C.N) centre.