Bhubaneswar, March 1: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has opened a dedicated central laboratory complex on its campus here to provide centralised quality health service.

The laboratory's aim is to bring in all pathological services under one roof - which would facilitate the health service seekers to go for tests and get reports instantly from the service provider from a single facility. The operational hours for outpatients would be 8am to 4pm, while there would also be 24X7 emergency lab services.

Earlier, an external agency used to run the laboratory service. The new system would further help people get the tests done in an affordable price.

"The department of biochemistry, pathology and microbiology has taken over the laboratory activities in the hospital. Our doctors and pathologists will perform all the investigations from now onwards in the central laboratory complex," said AIIMS director Gitanjali Batamanbane.

AIIMS administrators said quality of investigations would be maintained and the patients would get the results at an affordable cost through the laboratory complex. "Earlier, the outsourced agency, which was in charge of the laboratory activities, used to charge according to its rate chart. Now, we are going to brought down the charges for various tests according to our protocol," said an official here.

The apex institute has also initiated a new course of laboratory technician. "The students admitted to this new course will be exposed to performing various tests in a real-time manner at the laboratory complex. The experience would provide training to the students. In this manner, the laboratory would serve to dual purpose," said Batamanbane.

Sources said the lab would test for all vector-borne diseases, including malaria, filarial, dengue and more, through the Elisa technique. Moreover, the lab would also do various kinds of tests in the filed of haematology, clinical chemistry and microbiology.

"AIIMS here is already growing and a number of patients mainly from Khurda and Nayagarh are depending on this hospital. There is a need to provide them quality service," said Ankit Mohana, a patient from Jatni.