New Delhi:
The Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi has withdrawn his letter which listed the special arrangements recommended by the MPs in the country’s leading government hospital. The “VIP culture” was criticized by doctors’ unions and activists, while the institute said these were merely SOPs or permanent operating procedures for MPs.
In an apparent bid to counter the “VIP” allegation, AIIMS had also tweeted that “there is always a 24×7 control room to coordinate medical care of patients from all areas”, adding that the staff deployed to “expeditious treatment for the poorest of the poor”.
Large crowds and long queues are common in overcrowded AIIMS, where it sometimes takes hours to get the consultation card for the OPD. Emergency is also often suppressed to an extent.
“We Condemn VIP Culture”: Doctors Oppose AIIMS SOP To Treat MPs https://t.co/YoO9NhTcgZpic.twitter.com/v8x8KMBRxX
— ndtv (@ndtv) 21 October 2022
The letter withdrawn from the Director of AIIMS to the Joint Secretary of the Lok Sabha calls for streamlining the outpatient department (OPD), emergency consultation and hospitalization services especially for MPs.
One of its 11 points was that “all other patients” referred to AIIMS by MPs would be “provided appropriate assistance by the Media and Protocol Division”.
Dr M Srinivas’s letter to YM Kandpal states that if the MP requires OPD consultation, his staff only needs to share the details with the AIIMS duty officer. After this the duty officer will talk to the doctor and fix the appointment. “If it is needed, we can also talk to the center head or the head of the department concerned,” it said.
A similar call-the-duty-officer special service is available for emergency situations, the letter said.
It received a sharp response from the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Associations or FORDA. “We only know the VIP culture – the more serious a patient is, the more he is a VIP for us. This order should be withdrawn,” said Dr Sarvesh Pandey, general secretary of FORDA, who served in the second government. Hospital in Delhi.