The over-burdened Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) will soon introduce check up on appointment for the patients and initially it would be experimented in the super-specialty clinics here. long queues of patients, increasing manifold annually, in almost every OPD, are posing new challenges for the doctors, attendants, other affecting infrastructure,
Roughly, on an estimate, PGI attends more than 20 lakh patient at different OPDs annually. Which means, It is handling more than four to five times its capacity due to absence of good health care institute at par with PGI in the adjoining States, including Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu Kashmir or Rajasthan. More than one lakh patients are added every year in the list of existing patients here and most of them belong to the area comes under circumference of 200 km from the PGI.
According to data from PGI, the total numbers of patients who got registered in OPD in 2011 were about 18 lakh, which swelled to 19.19 lakh in 2012 and 20.61 lakh in 2013 and thereafter increased again last year. Such a situation has been forcing the PGI authorities to find solutions to tackle this problem. Sources said PGI has decided to introduce Check up on Appointment for the patients here.
As it cannot be implemented all of sudden in PGI, hence we decided to implement it in phases, said a senior doctor in the institute. He said as the number of patients getting treatment in the super-specialty services are less, this could be launched on an experiment basis. "If it proves successful, then we will extend it to the specialty services and then general OPDs too," added a senior doctor.
Regarding the proposed new system, he said they have submitted detailed requirement and suggestions to the director of PGI. Another senior doctor also said that in this new system, a doctor can cover up to 60 appointments within three hours daily and it would not affect routine work of the hospital. In PGI the Super specialty, includes Neurology, Neurosurgery, Paediatric Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Renal Transplant Surgery, Clinical Pharmacology, Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, Urology, Gastroenterology, Nephrology, Neonatology, Cardiology, Endocrinology and Hepatology.
Similarly, in specialty services, it includes Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Radiodiagnosis, Dermatology, Medical Microbiology, Hematology, Virology, Cytology, Immunopathology, Histopathology, Anesthesia, Nuclear Medicine, Ophthalmology, Oral Health Sciences, Orthopedics, Transfusion Medicine, Pediatrics, Parasitology, Radiotherapy, Psychiatry, Biochemistry, Forensic Medicine, Anatomy, Community Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Hospital Administration, ENT, Experimental Medicine & Biotechnology and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation etc. PGI has already start online registration facility in the Advance Eye center for new patients.