Five AIIMS functioning sans full-time heads, daily operations affected

NEW DELHI:  Five centres of All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) — Patna, Bhopal, Rishikesh, Bhubaneswar and Guwahati — do not have a full-time director, besides a number of vacancies for other posts, which has paralysed the functioning of these institutes.

Major decisions have come to a halt while the directors of other centres have been given additional charge of these five institutes, burdening them with the responsibility to run two facilities at the same time.

Dr Nitin M. Nagarkar, director of AIIMS-Raipur, has been given additional charge of AIIMS-Bhopal as the appointment of a full-time director there has been pending since November 2021.

The appointment of deputy director and financial advisor at AIIMS-Bhopal is also pending.

According to former AIIMS- Bhopal director Dr Sarman Singh, who served from June 4, 2018 to November 8,  2021, and also had the additional charge of Bibinagar (Telangana) AIIMS, presiding over two institutes is a challenging task which hampers policy decisions and other governing issues of the institute. 

Dr S Ramji, executive director of AIIMS-Kalyani (West Bengal) was entrusted with the additional charge of AIIMS-Guwahati as director in February this year. 

This newspaper contacted officials in Union health ministry, but there were no comments despite repeated attempts. 

A parliamentary committee panel had also expressed concern over shortage of staff at six AIIMS — Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh.

Burdened with double charge

Dr Saurabh Varshney, Executive Director of AIIMS-Deoghar, is holding additional charge of Patna-AIIMS. 

Mukesh Tripathi, Director of Mangalagiri (Andhra Pradesh) AIIMS, has additional charge of AIIMS- Bhubaneswar

Executive director of AIIMS-Rae Bareli, Dr Arvind Rajwanshi, has addl charge of AIIMS-Rishikesh