IMPHAL, Sept 14: The 39th foundation day of the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) was celebrated today at the Jubilee Hall of the institute with the Governor Gurbachan Jagat as the chief guest.
Addressing the gathering of the foundation day celebration, the Governor Gurbachan Jagat lauded the RIMS for imparting medical education and ameliorating the health conditions of the people of the North Eastern states, especially of the rural areas where adequate health and medicare facilities are not available.
However, he expressed dissatisfaction over the matter that patients are being referred to private hospitals from RIMS as some equipments are not available or malfunctioning. The RIMS being the number one referral hospital should ensure that no patient is referred to other hospitals and provide the best medical care as far as possible, the Governor asserted.
He further stated that the RIMS fulfills all statutory norms of the Medical Council of India. 2508 doctors have graduated from the institute as on March 31, 2009 and a nursing college was set up from December 2009 with an intake capacity of 50 students. Superspeciality courses in urology and plastic surgery have been started and a new department of immuno haematology and blood transfusion was opened on July 22, 2009, Gurbachan Jagat said.
The RIMS continues to grow as it has a long innings of dedicated service to the people of the region with bed strength of 1074, a total of 275612 patients were seen in the OPD, 31645 were admitted in the wards, 5746 major operations conducted in 2009-10. The total number of PG seats were increased to 144 per year w.e.f. July 2010, he noted.
The Governor also maintained that health is an essential prerequisite part of life. All social and economic activities of a country are closely related to the health standards of its people. With rapid advancement of medical sciences, many diseases can now be prevented or cured. Research medicine is thus heavily involved in efforts to ascertain the immune system not only of AIDS but also of other diseases such as rheumatic fever, rheumatoid arthritis and Systematic Lupus Erythematosus, he asserted.
The Governor also appealed to the doctors, nurses, paramedics to establish a good rapport with their patients who are mostly poor and needy.
The foundation day was also attended by Prof. C. Amuba, vice-chancellor of Manipur University, Dr. E. Kuladhaja, retd. Prof. and HOD of Medicine, RIMS, and Dr. N. Tomal Singh, retd. Prof. and HOD of Anaesthesiology, RIMS, as the president and guests of honour respectively.