Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad Lays Foundation Stone of Mother and Child Block, and Surgical Block at AIIMS

New Delhi February 5, 2014: The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad laid the foundation stone of Mother and Child Block, and Surgical Block at AIIMS, here today. The Surgical Block and the Mother and Child Block will function as apex centres for advanced education and research in the field of surgery and for providing best diagnostic and health care services to children and mothers, respectively. 

Speaking at the occasion Shri Azad highlighted that the Government has started, developed and completed a large number of projects in health sector in such a short duration. The Mother and Child, and Surgical Blocks are the steps in this direction. 

The state-of-the-art Mother & Child Block will cover a built up area of about 45,000 square meters and will have three basements and nine floors. The Block will have adequate facilities for Department of Paediatrics as well as Obstetrics and Gynaecology and will house 400 beds, 12 operations theatres, intensive care units, day- care facilities and seminar halls. The estimated cost of this project is Rs. 200 crores and it will be completed in about 2 years time. 

The Surgical Block has been conceived as an integrated facility which will be housed in a building with three basements and nine floors, with a total built-up area of about 17,000 square meters. Among other things, it will have 200 beds, 12 operation theatres, a National Endoscopy Centre, a High Dependency Unit and transplant facilities. It is being constructed at an estimated cost of Rs. 55 crores, this facility is expected to be ready by April 2015. It will provide opportunities for networking among stake-holders associated with surgical disciplines at the national and global levels. 

The Minister emphasized the developments in the health sector in the country and said that within four years 97 new Medical Colleges have been established. There has been 75% increase in MD seats and 55% increase in MBBS seats. The Government has changed MCI rules to improve the health scenario of the country. Under Phase III of PMSSY, Government is taking up up-gradation of 39 more Medical Colleges across the country at an estimated outlay of Rs. 5,900 crores which will add more than 8,000 tertiary care beds. Also, the 6 new AIIMS and 19 institutions taken up in 1st and 2nd Phase of PMSSY would provide speciality and super-speciality care in all disciplines with a net addition of more than 11,000 beds covering 27 locations spread across the country, he added. 

Shri Azad stated that the Cabinet has approved 71 new Cancer Institutes in December, 2013 at the national, state and tertiary levels. The National Cancer Institute being set up at the second campus of AIIMS at Jhajjar, Haryana at a cost of nearly Rs. 2,000 crores, an amount of Rs. 3, 200 crores has been approved by Government of India for setting up 70 more Institutes in different parts of the country, specifically for cancer, with state of art facilities for chemotherapy, radiotherapy and onco-surgery. The Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute at Kolkata is also being expanded with a second campus at a cost of Rs. 400 crores. 

Present at the occasion were Shri C.K. Mishra, Additional Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Shri Jagdish Prasad, Director General Health Services, Dr. M.C. Mishra, Director AIIMS and various faculty members and doctors.