IGIMS gears up to launchfree medication initiative

PATNA: The Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) appointed 75 junior resident (JR) doctors to manage the rush of patients after launching the state government’s people-friendly initiative of free medication to patients undergoing treatment there.
The doctors will join on Thursday and undergo two days of training under the medical experts on how to handle an emergency patient immediately after his arrival and after being taken to the intensive care unit.
The medical superintendent of IGIMS Dr Manish Mandal said the hospital has sent a requisition of about 3,000 medicines, kits, and reagents to the Bihar Medical Services and Infrastructure Corporation Limited for keeping the stock available for uninterrupted supply to patients. The free medication programme at IGIMS is likely to begin in a week. The new initiative is likely to exert work pressure on its doctors and staff as a large number of patients, including those of financially weaker groups, would prefer to go for healthcare under the super specialist doctors.
“Free medication will, however, be available only for emergency patients and those admitted there and undergoing treatment for various diseases,” Mandal said, adding that free medication would, thus, come as a boon to people who could not afford to avail high-cost healthcare in private hospitals.
Patients seeking medical advice at OPDs would not be entitled to get free medicines.
“The new NEET-qualified JRs would mainly be posted with different emergencies — cardiac, neuro, pulmo, cancer, and general emergency, act under the direction of senior doctors and render their valuable role in saving precious lives,” he said.
The Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences being the only super specialty hospital of the state government with 37 departments, the hospital, on average, receives 5,000 patients every day from different parts of the state but the number is likely to shoot up soon after introducing the free medication initiative.
Of about 200 patients reaching the IGIMS emergency department every day, the larger numbers were of neuro and cardiac patients, mostly with a brain haemorrhage and heart attack.