AIIMS to mentor five PHCs for improving basic health care

Nagpur: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the city has made a good beginning by adopting five urban and rural primary health centres (PHCs) to equip them better in handling patients.
Experts from the AIIMS will train the staffers at these PHCs in conducting basic diagnosis so as to prevent the patients being pushed to a tertiary care centre unnecessarily.

The newly appointed president of AIIMS, Dr PK Dave, who was on a maiden visit to the institute, said PHCs are the first step in health care delivery and hence should be well equipped and have trained staff.

AIIMS will be mentoring these PHCs at Nandanvan in collaboration with Nagpur Municipal Corporation and Tata Trusts. It will include specialist consultation, health and wellness centre. Rural PHCs at Kuhi, Umred and Ramtek will be covered under the programme. PHC at Bela will be developed as AIIMS’s rural health training centre where in patient and out patient services will be given besides implementing community-based health projects.

Dr Dave, who happens to be a graduate of the first batch of AIIMS, New Delhi, said health delivery system needs to be strengthened from the bottom upwards. About new AIIMS, Dr Dave admitted that there was deficiency of qualified and trained teachers.

Maj Gen Dr Vibha Dutta, AIIMS director, said efforts would be made for shifting the first batch of students next year to the actual AIIMS building. She said that government support was needed to expedite the ongoing projects like Metro so that patients could reach AIIMS easily.