Regional AIIMS a letdown, more in line

Nearly a decade after they became operational, the first batch of six AIIMS at Bhopal, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Jodhpur and Rishikesh are nowhere near their illustrious parent institute that was set up in Delhi seven years after Independence.

Taken together, the six AIIMS carried out 89,729 minor and major surgeries in 2019 as against 1,04,850 such surgeries at AIIMS Delhi. The average OPD footfall in these hospitals vary between 1,800 and 3,000 a day in the same year as against 10,000 plus at AIIMS Delhi.

Conceived by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government two decades ago, the six regional AIIMS were established with the objective of correcting the regional imbalance in the availability of affordable and reliable tertiary healthcare.

But as of September 2020, five of the six AIIMS have failed to even recruit the sanctioned number of faculty members. The only exception is AIIMS, Rishikesh that managed to fill up 82% of its faculty positions.

The worst performers are AIIMS Patna and Raipur that recruited only 47% and 48% of their faculty. The other three are marginally better, filling up just about 60%.

Notwithstanding its failure to staff these institutes, the Centre plans more such institutions in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Jharkhand.

As many as 15 such institutes have been sanctioned by the Narendra Modi government in the last seven years and at least four more are under consideration.

“Service conditions must be more attractive. Rotation between regional and central AIIMS will help provide service incentives and spread the culture of the parent AIIMS, which too will benefit from infusion of regional health perspectives,” K Srinath Reddy, president of Public Health Foundation of India and a former professor of cardiology at AIIMS Delhi, told DH.

All the six fare poorly when it comes to filling up non-teaching positions. Out of the 22,656 non-faculty posts, only 11,995 are filled up and 10,661 posts are still lying vacant. At AIIMS Bhopal, Bhubaneswar and Patna, there is less than 50% of the sanctioned strength.

Once again, AIIMS Rishikesh is the best performer as it has managed to fill up nearly 80% of such posts and AIIMS Patna is the worst one with only 29% recruitment. AIIMS Bhopal is a tad better with 40% recruitment whereas the other three recruited 50-60% of their non-faculty staff.

“The Committee expresses its deep anguish over the snail’s pace at which the recruitment process of non-faculty posts in the first six AIIMS is going on. Against the sanctioned strength of 22,656 non-faculty posts, only 11,606 posts remain filled up,” the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health said in its report.

“Establishment of new AIIMS in different locations is attractive to regional political leaders but does not meet the expectations of excellence in healthcare, teaching and research that the original AIIMS has achieved. Unless primary care and district hospitals are strengthened, the referral chain will remain weak,” said Reddy.