More beds, better care as AIIMS gets nod for land

NEW DELHI: AIIMS will now be able to expand its campus by 17 more acres and accommodate several more beds and critical care facilities with DDA having finally approved the land transfer eight years after the proposal was first put across. The premier medical facility will now be able to execute its plan of developing a huge integrated medical campus in the area and increase its bed capacity to nearly twice its existing number.
AIIMS currently has 2,000 beds which, according to a proposal sent to DDA, it plans to augment to 4,100 on getting the land. AIIMS Trauma Centre, which gets about 1,000 cases per day, has 120 beds and its emergency about 20 beds. Officials from the hospital had told DDA in their meeting that unavailability of beds and critical care were affecting thousands of patients who come to the hospital from all over the country seeking treatment. The hospital even has plans to expand the ICU to include 20 more beds. However, all of these plans had to wait till Thursday when the official approval by DDA was finally awarded.
In 2008, DDA had also proposed a 1.56km long motorable tunnel, which was to be constructed with the help of Delhi Metro, to interconnect the trauma centre to the main AIIMS facility. With the transfer of land this project estimated at Rs 50 crore then could also pick up.
The idea of expanding the trauma services facilities and augmenting the bed capacity was first proposed eight years ago in 2006. Since then the proposal was deferred due to several reasons till it was recently pushed by DDA in its meeting with the UD ministry in late May this year.
In a follow-up meeting DDA chairperson Najeeb Jung asked DDA to carry out a tree census to see that the project didn’t run into environment troubles. The results of the survey showed presence of 650 trees, and the number was then thought not large enough to come in the way of the project. Officials say that a plantation drive will be conducted to make do with the loss of trees that will have to be cut to make way for AIIMS expansion.