Dr. Gitanjali Batmanabane recently took charge as Director AIIMS Bhubaneswar. Prior to this, she was serving as the Professor and HOD of Pharmacology department of JIPMER. She has also served with World Health Organization [WHO] from 2010-12, during which she has been actively involved in few projects for Odisha.
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Excerpts of her Interview with Sandeep Pattnaik and Brahmipriya Samantray of Ashapradeepnews.com.
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Q. What would be your top priorities for upgradation of facilities after holding the reins as Director of AIIMS Bhubaneswar?
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Ans. My first priority shall be to increase the number of beds to 1,000 which stands at 650 at present. Next to open up all OTs. In total we have aimed to install 32 OTs but now there are only 5 OTs here. Then last but not the least we have to procure high end equipments to be used in OTs and also pertaining to departments like Radio Therapy, Nuclear Medicine etc., which needs Ministry of Health approval. For the above options to become functional, the construction work of buildings has to be finished. I expect AIIMS Bhubaneswar to be fully-functional during my tenure of 5 years here.
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Q. Regarding academic front what are the future plans?
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Ans. We are providing only Pre-clinical and Para-clinical courses at present. We have plans to open clinical PG courses like Medicine, Surgery, and Dermatology etc., besides DM & MCH courses.
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Q. Recent fire tragedy in a big private hospital here has raised eyebrows of all stakeholders to implement fire safety measures inside hospitals on a war footing basis. How AIIMS Bhubaneswar is taking steps in this regard?
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Ans. We have all fire safety measures in place here. But regarding obtaining of fire certificate, we have applied for that. As you know, unless all the requisites of construction work completed fully, a hospital cannot get fire certificate or clearance. Now AIIMS Bhubaneswar has not been fully operational and is partly functioning due to construction delays. Post this incident, now we have started training of our doctors, technicians, nurses, security staffs to be aware to handle any type of such unforeseen incidents. Besides fire safety, we are also concerned of other safety measures like medication safety, health workers safety, taking care of infectious standards etc.
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Q. AIIMS Bhubaneswar is facing shortage of doctors since long. What are your plans to fill up the long-standing vacancies?
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Ans. Ministry of health has sanctioned 345 doctors post for this AIIMS Odisha unit. So far we have recruited 142 doctors that is almost 50 percent. Rest of the posts will be filled-up through a third round of recruitment drive.
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Q. Share some of your experience while working with WHO (2010-12).
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Ans. I have done a project on ‘Essential Medicines for Children’ in Odisha and Chhattisgarh related to availability and prices of drugs. Also training was provided in 30 districts of Odisha to around 340 Government Pharmacists working in the State of Odisha in SCB Cuttack, VSS Burla and MKCG Berhampur.
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Q. What are your provisions regarding affordable health care for poor patients?
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Ans. We are providing free treatment for BPL card holders. Also medicines are provided with 62 pc discount here.
