Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare inaugurated multiple facilities at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhopal today. He was joined by Shri Vishwas Sarang, Minister for Medical Education, Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation, Government of Madhya Pradesh. Shri Ramakant Bhargava, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), Shahganj also graced the occasion.

The Union Minister laid the Foundation Stone of Administrative Block and dedicated the Auditorium of AIIMS, Bhopal to the community. He also inaugurated the Mycology Advanced Resource Centre (MARC) established with the collaboration of ICMR. The Skill Lab and the Cancer Treatment Centre (CTC) of the institute were dedicated to the country.

Recollecting the long-arduous journey in providing regionally balanced specialized medical care throughout the country, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, “Dream of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji being fulfilled with a network of AIIMS across the country for superior healthcare for all citizens.  He envisioned mitigating the regional imbalance in the healthcare management and teaching standards, after the long realization that AIIMS, Delhi was too much overburdened to cater to the entire nation. Therefore, in 2003 he announced PMSSY and under this scheme 6 regional AIIMS in various parts of the country. This was with great efforts of late Smt. Sushma Swaraj ji and justified the demand of the region that this institute was established at Bhopal. It is geographically and strategically the best location of such an Institute, which was formally announced on 16th July 2012 through an ordinance.”

He stated that the Government of India under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is deeply committed to expanding the Institutes of Medical Excellence for high-quality medical care for all.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan expressed his unqualified elation at the multi-faceted achievements of the institute including areas of academics, patient care services, capacity building and research activities.  

Speaking of the recently inaugurated ICMR-MARC Centre, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, “I am also happy to know that Institute has got the New Generation Sequencing facility. This system will help faster sequencing of the pathogens including the SARS-CoV-2, other viruses, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. I am also incredibly happy to know that scientists and faculty of this Institute in collaboration with AIIMS, Delhi and other Institutes have developed several TB diagnostic tests, some of these are in the advanced technology transfer stage. Other facilities like Animal imaging system, Flow cytometer with sorting, LCMS, Automated Nucleic Acid extraction system will pave way for research of international standards including in-vivo drug targeting, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. I am pleased to know that out of the box thinking of the Director of AIIMS, Bhopal led to establishing the Centre for Translational Medicine, the unique facility in any medical Institute of the country. This centre with all this state-of-the-art equipment can become a milestone in the integration of clinical and basic science. Translation medicine has a great future. This Centre at AIIMS, Bhopal is formed with the aim to accelerate the discovery of new diagnostic tools and treatments by using a multi-disciplinary, highly collaborative, "bench-to-bedside" approach. In this centre work will be done mainly on new diagnostic kit development, drug discovery, Whole genome sequencing, transcriptomics, artificial intelligence, and clinical trials.   We must learn how the innovations reach to the benefit of mankind and do not end at the publication of findings.”

He congratulated the institute in its endeavour of productive collaboration with other Institutes like the Research Institute of McGill University Health Center, Canada; CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR); National Institute of Health & Family Welfare (NIHFW); National Health Mission (NHM); AIIMS Rishikesh; Department of Public Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of MP.

The Health Minister also informed that AIIMS, Bhopal in its capacity as Mentor Institute for combating COVID-19 pandemic had supervised a total of 38 laboratories, institutes and medical colleges of Madhya Pradesh for COVID-19 RT-PCR testing after providing their microbiologists and lab technicians training at the Regional Virology Laboratory of AIIMS, Bhopal. The in-house laboratory has done more 1.96 lakhs COVID-19 tests till 12th March.

“As a centre of Excellence for clinical management of COVID-19, Weekly webinars are being organized through COVID-19 related to pathophysiology, diagnostics, epidemiology, prophylactics, and therapeutics of COVID-19 among the medical and nursing fraternity of the region.”, he added. He also congratulated the institute for administering a total 6,433 doses of vaccines till date.

Dr Balram Bhargava, Secretary (Health Research) and DG-ICMR, Prof. (Dr.) Sarman Singh, Director, AIIMS Bhopal and other senior officials of ICMR and AIIMS Bhopal were also present.