Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) will start an emergency medicine department, the first among government hospitals in the state, on the lines of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, in November.

It will also start a postgraduate course in emergency medicine, another first for any medical college in Bihar.

Elucidating the expansion, IGIMS medical superintendent Manish Mandal said: 'The emergency medicine department at IGIMS would basically act as a centralised emergency. It will have different specialists working together and be headed by an anaesthesiologist-cum-intensivist (expert who specialises in the care of critically ill patients, most often in the intensive care unit). Usually a lot of time is wasted in moving a patient from one department's emergency wing to the emergency of the department concerned. But the new emergency medicine department at IGIMS would help give patients all possible treatment at one place.'

Mandal said the move will benefit patients related to road accidents, poisoning, drowning, burns, heart attacks, gunshots or weapon wounds and natural calamities among others who require treatment by more than one specialist, as they will get different specialists under one roof at IGIMS.

Divulging the constitution of the team of doctors in the department, Mandal said: 'The additional professor of anaesthesia department Sanjay Kumar, who also happens to be an intensivist, will head the emergency medicine department, while Krishna Gopal from the general surgery department, Bhim Ram from the general medicine department and Deepak Pankaj from the general surgery department will be part of the core team. Doctors from orthopaedics, cardiology, microbiology, obstetrics and gynaecology, pathology, pulmonary medicine, oncology, reproductive biology and general medicine, will also be part of the team.'

There would be more beds for critical patients in the emergency medicine department.

Increase in the number of beds at IGIMS will bring relief for poor patients.

'While private hospitals charge around Rs 5,000 per day charge for ICU, we charge only Rs 1,250 for the facility at IGIMS,' said a source.