WB-IIT-HOSPITAL

Indoor services of IIT KGP's hospital to begin next year
    Kolkata, Oct 21 (PTI) The indoor services of IIT
Kharagpur's superspecialty hospital, Dr B C Roy Institute of
Medical Science and Research, is expected to begin next year
with 400 beds in the first phase, the institute said in a
statement on Monday.
    The outpatients' department is likely to be open by
the end of this year while the capacity of the hospital will
be enhanced to 750 beds in the second phase, it said.
    Officiating Director of IIT Kharagpur, Prof Sriman
Kumar Bhattacharyya, said once the hospital is operational, an
MBBS programme will be rolled out for 50 students in the first
phase.
    The course curriculum will be formulated as per the
MCI guidelines, he said.
    Bhattacharya said the number of seats in the MBBS
programme will be expanded to 100 in the second phase and
postgraduate degrees will eventually be introduced.
    Healthcare data sciences and data analytics would also
be among the primary thrust areas of the hospital, he said.
    "While the academic affairs will be managed by the
institute, the healthcare facilities of the hospital will be
run by a special purpose vehicle floated under Section 8 of
the Companies Act, 2013," Bhattacharya said.
    The hospital's board of directors will be headed by
the director of the IIT Kharagpur and will comprise senior
faculty members of the institute, he said, adding that the
hospital will be run in a not-for-profit model.
    While 10 per cent of the beds at the hospital would be
free, 65 per cent of them would be charged as per the rates in
the central and state health insurance schemes, Bhattacharya
said.
    Anticipating a heavy influx of patients, the institute
has also decided to set up mobile healthcare units to cater to
the needs in the immediate neighbourhood, project director and
visiting faculty at IIT Kharagpur, Dr Satadal Saha said.
    "The mobile units will perform basic diagnosis and
treatment, which will reduce the patient load in the
hospital," he said.
    The institute has also collaborated with the All India
Institutes of Medical Sciences, Tata Medical Center and the
South Eastern Railway Hospital.
    "Collaboration between clinicians and scientists will
help in the development of better therapeutics," Prof
Ritobrata Goswami, Assistant Professor, School of Bioscience
at the institute, said. PTI SUS
ACD ACD

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)