AIIMS in collaboration with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has set up a temporary 40-bed night shelter outside its dental centre, to bring relief to patients and their relatives from the biting cold in the national capital.
This was done to provide night shelters to the patients and their relatives who camp outside the premiere institution in case they fail to get a bed, officials said.
“AIIMS is visited by large number of patients and many camp outside the institution failing to secure a bed.
“We have set up this temporary night shelter. We are planning to come up with some more such temporary night shelters,” AIIMS spokesperson Amit Gupta said.
AIIMS is also building a new 200-bed permanent night shelter that would be ready by 2015, he added.
The hospital has received Rs 29 crore from the Power Grid Corporation for building the permanent facility.
Gupta said that a large number of patients coming to AIIMS for treatment are from neighbouring states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, who in the absence of getting a bed either make their own arrangements or else camp outside the hospital.
The premier hospital already has a 160-bed night shelter located on the campus of the Trauma Centre, being run jointly with the CRPF.
There is another 500-bed night shelter at the hospital’s east campus near Safdarjung Hospital.
—PTI