Finally, the paramilitary forces will have a state-of-the-art research and referral hospital on the lines of Army with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh going to inaugurate the project next week.
The construction of the Rs 1,368 crore hospital will begin on Wednesday when the PM will lay the foundation stone of the Central Armed Police Forces Institute of Medical Sciences (CAPFIMS).
The modern residential research and referral hospital will be constructed in the next five years and boasts of a dedicated Air Ambulance Unit, a helipad and Fast Field Mobile Hospital Unit that will be kept in readiness 24/7 for any anti-insurgency or anti-Naxal operation. This besides, it will also a multi-speciality hospital, two separate institutes of nursing and paramedical, a residential campus for students and doctors.
The hospital was conceptualised in 2009 and will cater to the requirements of all the seven paramilitary forces like CRPF, BSF, ITBP, NSG and Assam Rifles. It will be registered as a society under the Union Home Ministry.
The 1,500-bedded hospital will be located at a campus at Maidangarhi in South Delhi. Genera and ICU wards, the AIIMS-patterned medical college will also offer 530 seats in various streams of medicine, paramedics and nursing. The paramilitary forces, which at present have a chain of composite hospitals spread across the country, have been facing acute shortage of medical professionals due to combatised environment and peculiar hardships associated with tough and strenuous deployment often in disturbed areas and difficult locations.
The institute will attract and retain the doctors, paramedical staff and nurses with in-house education and training of medical professionals on the line of Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC).
Once operational, the hospital and medical college will draw strength and faculty from these forces and also through direct recruitment. The Border Security Force, country’s largest border guarding force, has been made the nodal authority for the development of this ambitious health care project.