BHU Cardiologist sits on Hunger Strike demanding separate AIIMS

Shankar said he was on a hunger strike to press for his long-pending demand for a separate AIIMS here, which needs to be built on outskirts of the city.

Varanasi: A day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to his Lok Sabha constituency to inaugurate the Bharatiya Pravasi Diwas-2019, a BHU Medical College cardiologist Monday sat on a hunger strike to press for his demand of a separate AIIMS outside the varsity campus.

Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh Monday said in a tweet that the Aam Aadmi Party extends its support to cardiologist Om Shankar's demand of a separate AIIMS in Varanasi.

Shankar said he was on a hunger strike to press for his long-pending demand for a separate AIIMS here, which needs to be built on outskirts of the city.

Meanwhile, AAP workers too joined Shankar, who sat on the strike outside the BHU's entrance gates near Singhdwar.

BHU Medical College has been upgraded to an AIIMS-like institution but the cardiologist has been demanding a separate AIIMS saying that the varsity hospital was already crowded with patients from neighbouring states as well as Nepal.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that in 2018 a MoU was exchanged in this regard between union ministries of HRD, Health and Family Welfare and the UP government at K N Uduppa.

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar at that signing of the MOU had announced that IMS-BHU will get 700 additional beds and super specialty health facilities, and also assured that the institute will not face any financial problems for its upgradation into AIIMS like institution.

Read also: IMS-BHU upgraded to status of AIIMS