Patna: Union minister of state for health and family welfare, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, on Monday reiterated his government's resolve to set up another AIIMS in the state.
"The Union government has already announced setting up of another AIIMS in Bihar and the process is on," Choubey said after inaugurating new facilities at AIIMS-Patna.
The Buxar MP spoke about former Union finance Arun Jaitley's 2015-16 budget speech where he had announced setting up of a second AIIMS in Bihar. However, he did not disclose where the new AIIMS will come up.
Though it has been three years since the Centre announced setting up of a second AIIMS in Bihar, the Centre and the state have to finalise where it will come up. "The state government has till date not decided where it will come up," state health minister Mangal Pandey said.
Sources said that after Jaitley made the announcement, the Union health ministry reminded the state, on several occasions, to provide land for the new health hub, but there has been no move. Around 200 acres with required infrastructure, like better road connectivity to highways, sufficient water supply, power connection and necessary land clearance from the state government would be required.
"The biggest challenge before the state government is to provide land," a senior state health official said on condition of anonymity. "As the density of population in Bihar is higher than in other states and a large chunk of the population depends on agriculture, providing land is a big challenge."
AIIMS-Patna, inaugurated in 2004, is yet to function fully. Then vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat laid its foundation stone in Phulwarisharif in 2004, but classes for the first batch of MBBS students there started in September 2012. The health hub came up over six years later. But of the sanctioned 305 faculty (doctors) posts, only 117 are working.
The six AIIMS announced with AIIMS-Patna have already launched post-graduate studies, but AIIMS-Patna is yet to start it. Even the pathological labs are not fully functional. Sources said AIIMS-Patna received most of its facilities in the past year. "The hospital will get new facilities such as more OTs, expansion in beds and other facilities in the coming days," AIIMS-Patna director Prabhat Kumar Singh said.
Apart from three new facilities on Monday, in May the hospital received a blood bank, new OPD building, C and D indoor blocks, affordable medicines and reliable plants for treatment (AMRIT) pharmacy, radiotherapy OPD and pain and palliative care unit.
