AIIMS advises faculty to keep administrative meetings outside of OPD hours

New Delhi: Faced with an eye-popping load of 20,000 patients every day, the All India Institute Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi has told its doctors not to leave outpatient duty for office meetings. 

Authorities at the country's premier teaching hospital have advised the faculty to schedule such meetings outside of OPD hours.

Also read |  Govt should review covid-19 vax-related side-effects: AIIMS professor

Doctors attending the morning interaction with administrative staff recently were told that various non-medical meetings—like those of the procurement committee—are often convened during the OPD hours. 

In such cases, patients have to wait in the OPD till the doctors return from the meeting, AIIMS director professor M. Srinivas said in a communication seen by Mint.

Minimum meetings

“Accordingly, it is advised that all administrative meetings, in which the clinical team members are expected to participate, should be convened, as far as possible, outside the OPD hours. If for some emergent reason, such meetings are required to be held in while the OPDs are functioning, the clinical team members should be given the option to join virtually for a brief duration or they should be freed from the said meetings on priority in the minimum possible time,” said Srivinas.

In 2022–2023, AIIMS-Delhi attended to about 4.25 million outpatients and 280,000 in-patients, and performed over 248,000 surgical procedures. 

Related read | Delhi Court directs AIIMS to form medical board, examine jailed Arvind Kejriwal amid insulin row