AIIMS Bhubaneswar begins Opioid Substitution Therapy centre

Bhubaneswar: AIIMS Bhubaneswar has started its own opioid substitution therapy (OST) centre and an acute care unit to strengthen treatment for addiction and severely-ill psychiatric patients respectively. 

The OST centre aims to cater to 150-200 patients on a day-to-day basis. It will be a major boon to reach out to this neglected population in Odisha, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said in a release on Wednesday.

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AIIMS executive director Ashutosh Biswas inaugurated the facilities in the psychiatry department, which has also initiated clinical services for children who are referred from the State Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SIEP).

The OST centre will run daily, while services for children from the SIEP will be provided on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Biswas said these services would be immensely helpful for different groups of psychiatric patients, including those with addiction and children with disabilities.

"India is currently a home to more than 8 lakh injecting drug users," psychiatry head Biswaranjan Mishra said, adding that such people remain at risk of suffering from life-threatening diseases like HIV.

The OST, along with a comprehensive package of psychosocial interventions, helps clients lead drug-free lives, assistant professor Arpit Parmar said. 

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that in order to provide better healthcare facilities to cancer patients in the state, a new separate daycare service and outpatient department (OPD) service had been inaugurated at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Bhubaneshwar's Oncology division.

This new initiative will reduce the workload and the burden of patients in the medical oncology division and the haematology department which earlier ran parallel OPDs and daycare.

The patients of the capital can now avail of the facilities of a new separate daycare service and outpatient department (OPD) service which has been inaugurated at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Bhubaneshwar's Oncology division of the medical oncology/ haematology department.

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