The All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) situated on the banks of the Brahmaputra River in Guwahati and inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April this year could prove to be the single best thing that has happened in the North East over the past 50 years.

AIIMS Guwahati has been running an outpatient department (OPD) for a few months now, and the footfall is already close to 1,000 patients a day. A 150-bed wing for emergency surgeries is expected to be operational within the month of June. This would be the precursor to the opening of the 750-bed hospital when fully functional in a few months.

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The Union Health Ministry has spent over Rs 1,100 crore on the new AIIMS in Assam and more monies are expected to be made available for the latest medical equipment. Once fully functional by end-2023, AIIMS Guwahati is expected to provide state-of-the-art oncological care, advanced laparoscopic facilities, trauma care, robotic surgery, organ transplantation, regenerative medicine, and simulation labs. The desperation of the seriously ill not just in Assam but across the North East may finally abate as AIIMS Guwahati is expected to provide world-class healthcare free of cost to patients from the region.

Thousands of people who have had no choice but to make arduous and expensive journeys to Kolkata or Delhi over the years for their serious medical needs must surely be breathing a collective sigh of relief, especially, as it has been 17 years since when the proposal was first mooted. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has been quick to point out that he had suggested an AIIMS in Assam when he held the health portfolio in the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government in 2006 but “nothing happened between 2006 and 2016.” It is true that it was only after the Centre gave its approval in June 2016, when the Congress state government was voted out and a BJP administration took over, that matters moved forward.

The central government sanctioned Rs 1,000 crore for setting up AIIMS Guwahati and Mr Sarma was without doubt instrumental in pushing through the project. But the time for taking credit is over. It is to be hoped that AIIMS Guwahati will correct regional imbalances in availability of affordable and world-class super speciality healthcare.

Apart from ensuring quality medical education, the premier medical institution is expected to provide comprehensive and holistic tertiary care health services to the people of the North East. AIIMS Guwahati’s Executive Director Dr Ashok Puranik has previously said that the effort would be to provide “doorstep health services” to patients through the institution’s community outreach efforts including extensive use of the digital health infrastructure. AIIMS Guwahati promises to be a game changer.