Govt committed to expanding institutes of medical excellence: Harsh Vardhan

NEW DELHI: Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said that the union government is committed to expanding the institutes of medical excellence for high-quality medical care for all.

Harsh Vardhan inaugurated multiple facilities at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal today.

“The Government of India under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is deeply committed to expanding institutes of medical excellence for high-quality medical care for all,” the minister said.

“Dream of Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji is being fulfilled with a network of AIIMS across the country for superior healthcare for all citizens. He envisioned mitigating the regional imbalance in the healthcare management and teaching standards, after a long realization that AIIMS, Delhi was too much overburdened to cater to the entire nation. Therefore, in 2003 he announced PMSSY and under this scheme 6 regional AIIMS in various parts of the country. This was with great efforts of Sushma Swaraj ji and justified demand of the region that this institute was established at Bhopal. It is geographically and strategically the best location of such an Institute, which was formally announced on 16th July 2012 through an ordinance,” he said.

The Union Minister further said, “I am happy to know that the institute has got the New Generation Sequencing facility. This system will help faster sequencing of the pathogens including the SARS-CoV-2, other viruses, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.”

The Health Minister also informed that AIIMS Bhopal in its capacity as Mentor Institute for combating the COVID-19 pandemic had supervised a total of 38 laboratories, institutes, and medical colleges of Madhya Pradesh for COVID-19 RT-PCR testing after providing their microbiologists and lab technicians training at the Regional Virology Laboratory here.

The Union Minister laid the Foundation Stone of Administrative Block and dedicated the Auditorium of AIIMS, Bhopal to the community. He also inaugurated the Mycology Advanced Resource Centre (MARC) established with the collaboration of ICMR. The Skill Lab and the Cancer Treatment Centre (CTC) of the institute was dedicated to the country.

State Minister for Medical Education Vishwas Sarang, Secretary (Health Research) Balram Bhargava, Director of AIIMS Bhopal and other senior officials of ICMR and AIIMS Bhopal were also present at the event.