Institute likely to restrict the number of patients it attends to in outpatient department on a daily basis
Institute likely to restrict the number of patients it attends to in outpatient department on a daily basis
This piece of news may make you ill at ease. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is working on a plan to restrict the number of patients it would attend to on a daily basis. The proposal reportedly got a positive response at a long discussion among various heads of departments, faculty members and other officials regarding the new token system that has been recently introduced at the hospital.
"The institute will soon cater to only a fixed number of patients. They have been planning to implement this idea for the past several years, but now they have taken up the matter at war footing. Each and every department has been asked to give details about the number of patients they attend to in a day," said a head of department at AIIMS on the condition of anonymity.
Prescribed wait: People queue up to get tokens issued at the outpatient
department in AIIMS. PIC/Rajeev Tyagi
Hopeless move
Sources say more than 7,000 patients are being treated by the institute on a daily basis out of which 40 per cent are new patients. Some doctors feel that this is not a wise move as patients would have to come to the institute again and again for treatment and many would return home disappointed every day. According to a few officials, this is another step towards alienating the institute from the general public.
"They are not at all thinking about the people. How will it be beneficial for those who are coming to us from other parts of the country? They are travelling miles to get treatment at the country's biggest medical institute and what they get in return is not acceptable," said a senior doctor who wished to remain anonymous.
'Private' threat
"They are continuously trying to make it a private hospital. It is a hospital managed by the government which focuses on the patients of all strata coming to them for the treatment," added the doctor. Meanwhile, other doctors feel that this should have been a done long time back as the institute is a specialised hospital that primarily looks after patients who are either referred or their case needs special research and care.
"The institute is not supposed to be a general hospital; it is a super specialty hospital. But due to political pressure, we are treating even minor cases. There were even plans of removing the Out Patient Department (OPD) from AIIMS but the plans did not materialise," said a faculty member, who didn't wish to reveal his name.
Where to go?
Many doctors also feel that in order to reduce the enormous number of patients coming to the hospital, there should be more super specialty hospitals in the city. "I don't know the details of the plan. But we have been demanding for several years that health services in the city should be improved so that there isn't an unfair load on the institute," said Dr Manoj Singh, President, Faculty Members Association, AIIMS.
Officials at the institute agree on the issue, saying that the process is already being implemented. "It is already there for all the new patients coming to the hospital. But there is a maximum handling capacity in which the timings are limited. And those patients who are in an extremely serious condition will not be returned from the hospital," said Dr DK Sharma, Medical Superintendent, AIIMS.
7000
Approx number of patients coming to AIIMS on a daily basis
300 to 350
Patients are attended to by each department every day
Rs 450 crore
Token gesture
The new token system at AIIMS to streamline OPD services and manage the crowd a waiting their turn for consultation has run into trouble with doctors. AIIMS director's wife and professor of gynaecology Dr Deepika Deka has sent a formal complaint to the medical superintendent (MS) of the institute, claiming that while doctors are present in the OPD by 9 am, patients begin to come in only by 10.30 am. AIIMS introduced the new token system a month ago, which replaced the queue system. Now, patients are provided a token number, and when their number is flashed on the screens in the OPD, they can go in to see the doctor. Assessing their token number, patients can decide when to arrive at the waiting room. "The AIIMS OPD has been infamous for the waiting hours. Patients used to start queuing up at 5 am for an appointment at 9 am. This new registration system brings in a more organised two-tier set-up, so that patients can show up at the OPD counters at a more realistic time as per their token numbers," said an administrative official. Approx amount of endowment received by AIIMS annually
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