The All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), Delhi has come up with a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs), for sitting Member of Parliaments (MPs) to streamline medical treatment facilities. However, the move has met with sharp reactions from some doctors who have called the move as “VIP culture”, news agency PTI reported.
AIIMS director M Srinivas has written a letter to YM Kandpal, joint secretary at the Lok Sabha Secretariat, listing SOPs for the outpatient department (OPD), emergency consultation and in-patient hospitalisation of sitting Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs.
The letter read that duty officers from the department of hospital administration will be available at the AIIMS control room 24*7 to coordinate and facilitate arrangements. Several contact numbers were also provided for the MPs staff to contact if they wanted to speak to the officer-in-duty.
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The officer, who is also a medical practitioner, will in turn speak to specialists concerned or HOD so as to fix an appointment.
Condemning the “VIP culture”, Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) said the special privilege to parliamentarians would come at the cost of common man’s lives.
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“We condemn VIP culture. No patient should suffer at the cost of another’s privileges. THAT being said, having a protocol to streamline things should not be viewed as derogatory, provided it doesn’t hamper patient care,” the association said in a tweet.