Patna: Residents can now seek consultation for their urology-related problems at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Patna.

AIIMS-Patna has an urologist, Dr Kamlesh Gunjan, who joined the health hub earlier this week. AIIMS-Patna director Dr Prabhat Kumar Singh said the urology outpatient department (OPD) would start at the hospital by Tuesday and urology surgeries would also start soon as the process of purchasing urology-related equipment was going on.

Earlier, there was no doctor in the urology department because of which the urology OPD was non-functional. Around 60 urology cases that used to come up in the surgery department's OPD at AIIMS Patna on a monthly basis were referred to Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical sciences (IGIMS).

Dr Kamlesh, who joined AIIMS-Patna as an assistant professor in the urology department, has super-specialization Master of Chirurgical (M.Ch) degree from Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS). He was working as a resident doctor at IGIMS. Kamlesh said that he would try to start the endoscopic and laparoscopic urology surgeries at the hospital after starting the OPD.

"Cardiac surgeries too would start soon at AIIMS-Patna," said AIIMS-Patna director Prabhat. "Our hospital has recently got a cardiologist. Earlier, there was no doctor in the cardiology department," Prabhat said. "Dr Shaheen Ahmed, who was earlier working with Paras HMRI Hospital, has joined AIIMS-Patna's cardiology department. We now plan to start cardiac surgeries soon. The process of purchasing cardiac catheterisation laboratory is on by HLL Lifecare Limited. We are hopeful that the cardiac cath lab would be installed within two months after which we will be able to start cardiac surgeries."

In another development, a postgraduate medical course might be started at AIIMS-Patna soon. All the five new AIIMS have started postgraduate courses at their institutions in the past three years. Only AIIMS-Patna failed to do so because the standing selection committee had asked the institution to get its infrastructure and manpower reviewed by AIIMS-Delhi before starting the postgraduate courses. AIIMS-Patna is taking the required steps, sources said.