AIIMS not merely a hospital, but a brand name: Nadda

New Delhi: Health and Family Welfare Minister JP Nadda said the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is not just a hospital but a brand name of the health sector of the country and maintaining its quality is a priority of the Government.

He told reporters here on the occasion of the third anniversary of the NDA Government that in order to make quality services available at affordable rates, the newly opened AIIMS in other parts of the country would be run on the lines of AIIMS Delhi.

''They will have medical facilities on par with the AIIMS in Delhi and there will be no compromise with these standards,'' he stated.Stringent standards for appointing doctors and medical personnel in new AIIMS hospitals have been fixed,he said.

In this context, he said it would be sufficient to say that 50 per cent of the candidates had been rejected during the recruitment process. He said ''the Government believes that the doctors and medical personnel who will be selected for these hospitals have a greater responsibility for maintaining the reputation of AIIMS for the next 20 years, so the Government is not in a position to take any risk in this regard.

Nadda said AIIMS has a different work culture. ''Here not only are health services provided, but they are seen in the human and in the Indian context. Therefore, this recognition of the health sector of the country and its goodwill is the priority of the Government.''Under the first phase, new AIIMS have been opened at Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh. Apart from these, approvals have been granted for starting an AIIMS at Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, Raiganj in West Bengal and in Jharkhand and Gujarat. ''Apart from these, upgradation of 19 Government hospitals is being done to bring them to the level of AIIMS,'' he added.