Blame Game Over Second AIIMS In Odisha’s Sundargarh

Bhubaneswar: Sundargarh legislator Kusum Tete Monday demanded that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik intervene and write to the Centre seeking a second AIIMS facility in Sundargarh district after scrapping the government’s existing MoU with public sector National Thermal Power Corporation.

“ The state government which had expressed intention to set up a medical college in Sundargarh must withdraw the proposal and the MoU it signed with the PSU and the Chief Minister should personally write to the Centre to establish a second AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) facility. A premier national institution in Sundargarh will certainly help people residing in the  neighbouring states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. We will extend our support to the project provided the chief minister makes his intention clear to the Centre,”  Tete told newspersons.

The row over the proposed second AIMS took centrestage after the ruling Biju Janata Dal members raised the issue of Centre’s neglect on the floor of the state Assembly when Health Minister Naba Das made a statement on the issue.

Das told members in the House that the state government was ready to provide 200 acres, assistance from district mineral fund and other support to set up the AIIMS in Sundargarh. A central team had also visited the district in this connection some four months back, but no action has been taken so far, Das said.

The only AIIMS facillity at Bhubaneswar has around 900 beds including those in COVID wards while about 3000 patients visit OPD on a daily basis. The trauma and emergency wards lack adequate number of beds for which at least 200 patients get disappointed due to shortage of room and facilities. An elderly lady grom Bengal who was brought to the trauma ward on a stretcher recently had to wait on the verandah for hours for CT scan. The ward has only 50 beds while about 250 patients visit the hospital everyday.

A second such facility in the state would certainly reduce the pressure on the premier institution in the city, suggest locals.