Expertise, low cost draw crowd at AIIMS-Delhi, steps taken to curb graft: Director Dr Srinivas

New Delhi: Good infrastructure and expertise of top doctors leading to accurate diagnosis and treatment at negligible cost at AIIMS-Delhi instil a sense of trust among patients for which they flock here from across the country, said the premier institute's Director Dr M Srinivas.

In an exclusive interview with PTI, he flagged that in a country like India with a huge population, speciality and superspeciality treatment along with a multidisciplinary approach is not available in most government medical facilities.

Asked about AIIMS-Delhi not witnessing a decline in patient load despite the opening of several regional AIIMS, Dr Srinivas said there is always a supply and demand mismatch and other centres will take time to reach the level of AIIMS-Delhi.

The first six AIIMS are doing extremely well and have reached almost the level of AIIMS-Delhi, he said.

"The idea of setting up other AIIMS in the country was that they would come to the level of AIIMS-Delhi and provide speciality and superspeciality treatment. It has not happened with most of the centres (so far)," Dr Srinivas told PTI.

"You have to understand that whatever we are today is because of the seven decades of our good work. Getting the tag of Institute of National Importance and Centre of Excellence takes time," he stressed.

Dr Srinivas highlighted that people come to AIIMS-Delhi with mundane and minor issues, which can be handled at a state government medical college or a district hospital.

This is also responsible for the crowding here, adding up to the problem, he said, adding the premier hospital witnesses a footfall of 12,000 to 15,000 patients daily.

The director of the premier institute said, "Because more the numbers after a limit, the quantity may cut the quality at the end. Besides, we cannot pick and choose. To a certain extent, we give preference to the patients who have complex cases and are referred ones." "We always tell people that please come to us if you have a complicated disease, a failed procedure, treatment or when the doctor in a particular state or city or medical college says that this is beyond my expertise and domain...that this requires an intervention or multi-disciplinary approach... that is possible in institutions like AIIMS only.

"Very few people outside the domain of the AIIMS will be in a position to offer that," he said.

Elaborating on his initiatives to ensure accountability and zero tolerance for corruption at India's premier hospital and medical college, Dr Srinivas said most of the government institutions in the country face these problems.

"When there is a supply and demand mismatch... there will be some people who will try to take advantage of those things. For the past two years, we have been working hard to put in place systems and processes for ensuring transparency in the administration." Dr Srinivas, a paediatric surgeon, who took charge of AIIMS-Delhi in September 2022 said his first order was to make the entire hospital administration fully digital.

"One of my first orders was to turn the entire administration into an e-office. About procurement and recruitment, we can say that we have put in systems in such a way that everything is transparent," he said.

"Currently we are fully digital on the administration side. On the hospital side, we are doing it in silos -- each department is doing it.

"We are on the national NIC portal and e-hospital is also there in place. There are basic software available, but we want to go beyond that so that it becomes totally digital," Dr Srinivas said.

He said almost 7.5 lakh ABHA IDs have been created under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) and AIIMS has been ranked number one in the country in the ABDM mission.

Under the ABDM, a 'Scan and Share' system was introduced in the hospital that integrated a patient's medical records, files and prescriptions and links those to an ABHA number. Through the 'Scan and Share' system, patients can easily register them online for appointments.

Over 18 lakh tokens have been generated and 6.4 lakh health records have been linked so far under the ABHA system at AIIMS-Delhi, Dr Srinivas said.

To a question on curbing corruption, he said discretionary powers at various levels at the premier institute have been cut down. "Power is poison and discretionary powers are lethal... It is very important that we put systems and processes in place to ensure transparency as much as possible." Dr Srinivas said the transparency ushered in at the AIIMS Delhi's procurement process has ensured scam-free operations.

"On one hand we have an e-office that is totally digital and payments have come to the SAHAS portal. No matter how intelligent a person is and no matter the nexus, scams and corruption are impossible." Commenting on the government's flagship health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, Dr Srinivas termed it one of the best and successful programmes that he has seen.

The scheme prevented lakhs of people from slipping into poverty due to out-of-pocket expenditure incurred during medical treatment, he said. "Today millions of people have got the advantage AB-PMJAY... we are very proactive and almost 30,000 patients have so far been treated under it at AIIMS-Delhi." Talking about the AIIMS Redevelopment Master Plan, he said most of the buildings are now old and the work on setting up new blocks is underway.

"Right now we are expanding the new OPD... most of the specialties have moved to the new building... For superspecialties like cardiology, neurology, ophthalmology and oncology we are coming up with a new OPD building that is called the super speciality OPD building," he said.

Dr Srinivas said they are also working on the Critical Care and Infectious Disease Block which is coming up in the JPN Trauma Centre area.

"Another which we are looking at is how to expand our services at the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-AIIMS, Jhajjar. We are going to set up the National Institute of Child Health there," he said.

The Mother and Child Block, the surgery block and the National Centre for Ageing, together have increased the capacity of beds in the institute by around 30 per cent, Dr Srinivas said.

"Today we have almost 3,600 beds, which makes us one of the largest hospitals in the world. The master plan envisages that on the eastern part of the campus, it is going to be entirely for hospitals.

"The present buildings, the one plus two quarters are going to be demolished and we are going to build the entire clinical and research and academic facilities on this side. Residential accommodation will come up on the western side of the campus," he elaborated.

On there being a huge difference between Indian and Western healthcare systems, the director differed and said that bigger institutions and Institutes Of National Importance in India are at par with most of the best centres of the world.