AIIMS opens geriatric OPD
NEW DELHI: Elderly people visiting AIIMS for medical help won't have to move around from one department to another any more. They can now go to the new geriatric OPD, which will have a multi-disciplinary team of doctors.
The geriatric OPD at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) - the first service being introduced under the National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly (NPHCE) - was inaugurated by Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday.

3-level underground parking at AIIMS
NEW DELHI: Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad laid the foundation stone of a three-level underground parking at AIIMS campus on Saturday. The parking will have space for 450 cars and is expected to provide some respite to the thousands of patients and visitors who have to jostle for space now. According to hospital authorities, the parking project costing Rs 50 crore (approx) is likely to be completed by October next year. Another proposal to build a brand new private ward with a separate underground parking facility has also been approved by the ministry, said hospital sources.

Six AIIMS-like medical institutes
NEW DELHI: The government intends to set up six AIIMS-like medical institutions in different states and Rs 847 crores have been released so far for them.
Stating this in the Rajya Sabha in reply to a written question, health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said the government has set a deadline to make medical colleges at six sites functional from academic year 2012-13 and hospitals by the year 2013-14.He said the government had approved the setting up of six AIIMS-like institutions in Bihar (Patna), Chhattisgarh (Raipur), Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal), Orissa (Bhubaneswar), Rajasthan (Jodhpur) and Uttarakhand (Rishikesh) under the first phase of Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY).

Construction of medical colleges and hospital complexes at all the six AIIMS-like institutions in first phase has started and is in full swing, he said the Rajya Sabha. Residential complex at Jodhpur and Raipur has been completed and work is in progress at remaining sites, he said.

Azad said the sites for setting up AIIMS-like institutions have been identified on the basis of various socio-economic indicators like human development index, literacy rate, population living below poverty line, per capita income and health indicators like population-to-bed ratio, prevalence rate of serious communicable diseases, infant mortality rate etc.