AIIMS OPD services to resume on May 20

The OPD services were stopped on March 24, just a few days after the second phase of the services were moved to a new, spacious block.

After a hiatus of nearly two months, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is planning to restart its out-patient clinics on Wednesday with restricted consultations, according to the hospital administration.

The hospital has been contemplating restarting the services from April-end, however, taking care of Covid-19 patients is drawing on most of the hospital’s manpower and resources. (ANI)

The clinics were shut on March 24, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19). Before that, at least 10,000 patients visited the OPD clinics each day, with around 40% of the patients arriving from other parts of the country.

The OPD services were stopped on March 24, just a few days after the second phase of the services were moved to a new, spacious block. Eight clinical departments, including pulmonary medicine, rheumatology, and radiology, were moved to the new Rajkumari Amrit Kaur OPD block in the Masjid Moth facility on April 16. The first phase of the services was moved to the new block earlier this year in February.

“We are planning to restart the out-patient clinics sometime this week. The number of people who will be allowed in the clinics every day will be restricted to maintain social distancing. All the departments will open up the clinics in a phased manner, beginning this week,” Dr DK Sharma, the medical superintendent of the hospital, said.

According to doctors of the hospital, the clinics are likely to resume services on Wednesday.

The hospital has been contemplating restarting the services from April-end, however, taking care of Covid-19 patients is drawing on most of the hospital’s manpower and resources.

With the hospital treating Covid-19 patients in its trauma centre on Ring Road and the cancer centre in Jhajjar, the main hospital has been handling emergency services, including the emergent and semi-emergent surgeries. Three operating theatres have been running round-the-clock in the hospital. The hospital has admitted at least 447 Covid-19 patients.

The doctors are, however, providing teleconsultation to patients who registered with them at the beginning of April.

Along with OPD, surgical services are also likely to be scaled up. “Several patients who come to our OPD need admission and surgeries, hence we need to open up these services too,” Dr Sharma said.

AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria had earlier told HT that simple surgeries such as gall stone removal and hernia will be started in the first phase as they require fewer days of hospital admission and minimal use of ventilators.

Earlier this month, Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain had asked Union health minister Harsh Vardhan to intervene to scale up non-Covid-19 services at the four Central government hospitals. He had requested the minister to covert one of the hospitals completely into a Covid centre and let the others resume normal services.

“I request that the central government dedicate one of its hospitals in Delhi for the treatment of Covid-19 patients and the others for non-Covid treatment. There have been cases of patients being refused routine treatment. Also, AllMS has taken a good step and dedicated the trauma centre and the cancer centre in Jhajjar to the treatment of Covid-19 patients but all its other services have been stopped. I urge you to restart the other facilities for non-Covid patients,” Jain had said in the meeting held in the first week of May.

While AIIMS had shut its OPD services completely, the other three central hospitals – Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, Safdarjung, and Lady Hardinge Medical College – had restricted their out-patient clinics and stopped routine surgeries.