AIIMS Institute Body seek Venugopal's comment on issues of concerns

New Delhi, Oct 18: The Insitute Body of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences met today and sought clarification from AIIMS Director P Venugopal on a number of issues including ''discrimination with SC/ST students, financial irregularities, administrative deficiencies and indiscipline.'' Briefing mediapersons about a over two-hour-long meeting which was boycotted of BJP leader V K Malhotra, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said the meeting discussed the functioning and state of afffairs at the AIIMS.

'The members shared a lot of concerns on a number of issues concerning AIIMS. They unanimously decided that all these concerns be given to the director seeking his reply within two weeks,'' he said.

Asked what were the issues of concerns, Dr Ramadoss said they were regarding discrimination of SC/ST students, financial irregularities, administrative deficiencies, indiscipline and even dengue situation handling.

Responding to a query whether the Delhi High Court order restraining the Institute Body not to discuss the dismissal of AIIMS director was a blow to him, the Health Minister said, ''Blow or not blow is not an issue. We respect the court and will go by whatever the court decided,'' he added.

He said the Director has been given two weeks time to respond to all these charges and after that period the Institute Body would meet again to discuss his response. Only 13 of the 17 members participated in today's meeting.

Denying charges that the Premier Institute was suffering because of the ''ego clash between the minister and the director,'' Dr Ramadoss said individuals do not matter as he wanted the institute to progress.

''We want AIIMS to become ike Hopkins and Harvard,'' he added.

However, the Resident Doctors Association of AIIMS charged the Health Minister with showing ''apathy, ignorance and negligence'' and demanded Dr Ramadoss resignation in view of the High Court order.

Welcoming the court order restraining AIIMS Institute Body from dicussing dismissal of Dr Venugopal, RDA spokesman Dr Anil Sharma said the Congress party that and Prime Minister Manmohan Shingh should realise that to safeguard their majority they cannot sacrifice public opinion.

Mr Malhotra, boycotting the meeting, said the whole exercise was meant to sack Dr Venugopal illegally as the director of the Institute Body. He said minutes of the last meeting has no mention of sacking Dr Venugopal. Mr R K Dhawan said all the members of the Committee discussed the state of affairs at AIIMS and unanimously decided to send these issues to the director to seek his comments.

However, the RDA charged the minister with denigrating the image of the AIIMS and said they are fighting for the autonomy of the institute which has been threatened under the present Health Minister.

Though the last meeting of the Institute Body had sacked Dr Venugopal, the minutes of the meeting circulated had no mention of the issue, the RDA spokesman charged.

He said dengue outbreak in the country was indicative of the collapse of the health care system for which Dr Ramadoss should take responsibility and resign. Lauding the measures taken by AIIMS administration to tackle dengue menace, he said the Institute was working 24X7 while the Health Minister visited AIIMS only on October 14 which shows his apathy and ignorance.

Even in today's meeting, Dean of Examination P K Dogra, who is special invitee and responsible for anti-dengue operation at the AIIMS, was not allowed to be present in the meeting to explain the measures taken to contain the disease. Only selective members were allowed inside the meeting.

UNI