Sunday, February 08, 2009

West Bengal and UP to get premier medical institutes

Indian government sanctioned Rs.16.46 billion ($340 million) for setting up two more premier referral institutes on the lines of the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here.

Government also sanctioned Rs.7.50 billion for upgrading five existing government medical colleges. The five government medical colleges being upgraded are located at Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh), Amritsar (Punjab), Madurai (Tamil Nadu), Nagpur (Maharashtra) and Tanda (Himachal Pradesh). The new referral institutes, to be established at a cost of Rs.8.23 billion each, will be located at Raiganj in West Bengal's North Dinajpur district and at a site to be chosen by the Uttar Pradesh government.

Each institution will have a 960-bedded hospital, with 500 beds for the medial college hospital and 300 beds for its speciality and super speciality departments. This apart, 100 beds will be set aside for the ICU and accident trauma department, 30 beds for physical medicine & rehabilitation departments and 30 beds for the Ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) departments.

AIIMS became functional in 1956 as an autonomous institution through an act of Parliament, to serve as a nucleus for nurturing excellence in all aspect of health care. In 2005, the government had approved five similar institutes at Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneswar (Orissa), Jodhpur (Rajasthan), Patna (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Rishikesh (Uttarakhand).

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