Ahmed Ali Fayyaz/Jammu

Jammu, the city of Temples, known for its peaceful ambiance, is all likely to see the inauguration of its first super specialty healthcare Hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jammu, in March or April. Its complex is ready to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a couple of months and fulfill a longstanding promise.

This will also address the longstanding grouse of the people of the region since the Sheikh Abdullah regime established the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura, in Srinagar in 1982, of preferential treatment to the Valley to providing public facilities.

Dr Shakti Gupta, Executive Director of AIIMS Jammu, said a total of 42 major buildings are coming up on 226.84 acres of the land allotted to the hospital on the National Highway-44. “We have completed 95 percent of the construction works and communicated to the higher authorities in New Delhi that AIIMS Jammu is ready for the inauguration. It has to be inaugurated by the Prime Minister. We are expecting a date in February or March from the PMO”, Dr Gupta told Awaz-the Voice.

Five years after the announcement of setting up the AIIMS-like institutes in every State in a phased manner, the Government of India started the construction of AIIMS Jammu at Vijaypur, on the outskirts of Jammu city in 2019. 

AIIMS Vijaypur, Jammu

“Most of the works have been completed. Some equipment is procured from within the country, some from overseas. A lot of coordination is involved in all turnkey jobs. Some works may continue even after the inauguration. But we are hopeful to make the hospital fully functional within the next 4-5 months”, Dr Gupta added.

He joined AIIMS Jammu as Executive Director in July 2021, following his retirement as Medical Superintendent and Head of the Hospital Administration Department at AIIMS New Delhi, who hails from Jammu. He was also associated with the establishment of AIIMS-like hospitals in some of India’s neighbouring countries.

“Normally such huge infrastructural projects are not completed in two-and-a-half years. It’s an exceptional achievement and a result of Dr Gupta’s long tenure at AIIMS New Delhi coupled with Dr Jitendra Singh’s induction as MoS in the PMO”, said a bureaucrat.

As regards the medical faculty, technical staff, and other human resources, Dr Gupta revealed that most of such recruitments were coming through two All-India competitions, even as some junior cadres were being selected by a local committee of the AIIMS Jammu. “We are going to operate a total of 50 departments—30 general and 20 super specialty. In the first phase, we are getting a total of 183 senior specialist doctors and faculty members. Until today, 88 doctors have joined. We are also getting 800 nurses out of which 450 have been selected and have joined”, Dr Gupta asserted.

Dr Gupta revealed that AIIMS will have 3,000 to 4,000 employees. “An amount of Rs 1,661 crore stands allotted for completion of this project but due to the cost escalation, inflation, and changes in GST rates, it may need around Rs 1,800 crore.

While the selected doctors have received a special short-duration training course of two weeks, the selected nurses are currently under a 6-month training course at AIIMS New Delhi. The hospital-cum-deemed university would conduct MBBS, MD, MS, DM, and MCh courses in medicine and surgery. Currently, a makeshift campus is operating at a former private IT college at Meeransahab.

Besides, a Nursing College of AIIMS Jammu is already functional with the admission of 60 candidates for BSc Nursing. 

Dr Gupta said that upon its completion, the MBBS intake would be raised to 100 seats each year while AIIMS Jammu would continue to admit 60 candidates for BSc nursing every year.

A view of the campus of AIIMS, Vijaypur, Jammu

Initially, some practical training courses were conducted for MBBS students at Rishikesh (Uttarakhand). However, all such practical courses are now managed at the Government Medical College (GMC) Jammu, close to the AIIMS Jammu makeshift headquarters, and a Government Hospital at Gandhi Nagar, Jammu.

The super specialty hospital will have 750 beds, including 46 trauma and emergency beds, 193 ICU beds, 20 operation theatres, a helipad, and a 1,000-seat auditorium besides MRI, CT, and CATH lab equipped with the most modern technology.

The departments would include General Medicine, General Surgery, Cardiology, CVTS, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Gastroenterology, Gastroenterol Surgery, Medical Oncology, Surgical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Urology, Nephrology, Pediatric Surgery, Burn and Plastic Surgery, Nuclear Medicine, ENT, Dermatology, Dentistry, Dermatology, CFM, Anaesthesiology, Anatomy, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics, Pathology, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Psychiatry, Radiology and Pulmonary Medicine.

Authorities are also working on a plan to develop Distance Education Centres and a Simulation Laboratory programmed with the latest Artificial Intelligence innovations.

In addition to multiple hospital blocks and academic blocks, a night shelter, an Ayush building, a convention center, a guesthouse, and a club, six hostel buildings are being raised for students.

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The facilities being raised at the campus also include a community shopping center, open-air theatre, animal facility, solid waste management, electric substation, solar energy charging station, solar street lights, fire station, Police post, swimming pool, gymnasium, 24x7 digital library, stadium, fully air-conditioned indoor sports complex and a crèche for babies. A soft music supply channel will connect the entire residential area.

While 13,500 big and 500,000 small trees are being planted, the Green Campus will have a 4-Star GRIHA rating.