The Hindu : National : "AIIMS has failed to focus on research"

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Thursday, Mar 17, 2005

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National

"AIIMS has failed to focus on research"

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 16. The Parliamentary Committee has said India's premier medical health centre, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has failed to emphasise medical research — one of its major objectives — primarily due to lack of funds and infrastructure.

Research has not brought benefits in terms of improved methodology, patenting or commercialisation, the Public Accounts Committee of the Fourteenth Lok Sabha has said in its 7th report tabled today.

The committee has said only a very small amount has been earmarked every year as Institute Research Grant from the budget allocations of the institute during the period 1994-95 to 2003-04 with a mere two per cent granted for research purpose.

Regretting that research in AIIMS has been adversely affected not only for want of funds but also due to review of projects, the committee says that 339 research projects commissioned during the decade 1991-2000 have been completed, but no final reports were received in respect of 153 projects. At least 54 of these 153 projects were completed between 1991-95.

Further, the report says that there was no evidence of the utilisation or dissemination of research findings and even the small efforts at promoting innovation have gone waste due to lack of will and application. Higher allocations would also not improve matters until the institutional arrangements improve and the projects are monitored for desired results, while hoping that all research projects would be regularly reviewed to assess the progress and viability.

Investigate AIDS

Suggesting that a national research agenda may be formulated to meet the emerging medical needs of the country and investigate diseases such as AIDS and SARS, the committee has asked the institute to develop necessary infrastructure for surveillance, rapid laboratory diagnosis and timely intervention, which, in turn, would enable the country to handle any health catastrophe. For this, the committee has suggested an increase in grants for research.

The committee has also pointed out that doctors employed in the institute invariably went on study leave abroad but seldom returned on time. It has observed that large investments in providing subsidised medical education for developing excellence have gone substantially unreturned. Though the committee agrees that the opportunities for self-progression through exposure to advancements in the bio-medical field should not be denied, they feel that it was unethical to use the country's meagre resources for training to make them eligible to go abroad.

On the treatment side, the committee says that the doctor-patient ratio in the Out-Patient Department in AIIMS has increased gradually from 1:21 in 1990-2000 to 1:32. In the indoor service, it is abysmally low at 1:35 and needs to be reviewed to render satisfactory service.

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