Will Soon firm Up Site for TN's AIIMS Avatar: Harsh Vardhan

Facility to come up on 200 acres in a location that is accessible to people of all four southern states, says union health minister

CHENNAI: Dr Harsh Vardhan, union health minister, said the Central government is taking efforts to identify a place to set up an institution similar to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the state.

Addressing the media through video-conferencing on Monday from New Delhi, he said the institution will be located in a place that is easily accessible to people in South India.

“We are in the process of finalizing a place. It would be established in such a way that all people from TN, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have easy access to this place,” the union minister said.

The ministry has already initiated an effort to establish AIIMS-like institutions in every state. Chief Ministers of 12 states including Tamil Nadu have been directed to find 200 acres of land for it. Six new AIIMS are coming up in Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Raipur, Patna and Rishikesh by the end of this year and each of them will have an institute of public health, an Ayush department and a department of environmental and occupational health.

For a national-level registry on organ donation, the central minister said Chennai would function as one of the five regional organizations under the National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (NOTTO) that was recently inaugurated. NOTTO, which is the first web-based interface between organ donors and recipients on the waiting list, was established in New Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital which will connect to six regional organizations in Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Guwahati.

The minister also said a nationwide programme to eliminate diseases like Rubella, Kala-azar and Filaria by 2015 has been initiated and that the government has called for a meeting with the health secretaries of all states on October 9 in this regard. “We have a detailed module and protocol ready to deal with health issues like hypertension, diabetes, cancer, obesity, mental illnesses, malnutrition among others. It will be rolled out after a final discussion on October 9,” he said.

Emphasizing holistic medicine, the minister said the government will host the first ‘World Ayurveda Congress’ from November 7 to 9 in New Delhi.

The minister, said that the central government is setting up an institution similar to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Tamil Nadu. He said the institution would be located in a place that is easily accessible to people in south India.

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