BHOPAL: AIIMS Bhopal is the laggard among the six AIIMs in the country and internal politics and controversies are the villain of the piece.
The dispute between Sanjay Singh Chauhan, former administrative officer and former deputy director Rituraj Singh, was one of the major controversies that eruped in AIIMS in 2014-15. The dispute took an ugly turn with allegations like image distortion and even physical assaults flying around.
In November 2014, Dr Sandeep Kumar, the then director, AIIMS Bhopal resigned from his post after a complaint about financial irregularities against top AIIMS officials. The complaint was filed by senior BJP leader and MP Khandwa, Nandkumar Singh Chouhan. Dr Sandeep was relieved in May 2015. After his resignation Deputy Director Rituraj Singh relieved AO Sanjay Singh Chauhan after his deputation period ended in May, following which Sanjay Singh Chauhan, filed a complaint against Singh seeking saying that only Union Ministry has the right to relieve him of duty.
In the same month, Ayush doctor Ajay Singh Baghel and Rituraj Singh filed police complaint against each other alleging physical assault and manhandling.
The controversies did not ended here. In September, three doctors of Ayush department, Dr Ajay Singh Baghel, Dr Amit Verma, Dr Shakti Singh Parihar and director Dr Sandeep Kumar were served notice by MP High Court for alleged recruitment irregularities. These three doctors then failed to get extension from Ministry of Health and family welfare and were then posted as store keepers.
In May 2016, another controversy emerged in AIIMS over outsourcing of nursing work even though 13,000 applications were pending and the hiring was done without any advertisement.
In September 2016, students, during the visit of Health Minister JP Nadda, protested against the poor state of the institute, lack of functioning departments, lack of faculty and proper infrastructure and training. Amid the protest, someone from outside the institute also threw ink on minister, after which students were accused of the act. Later it was clarified that the ink was thrown by the outsider.
Dr Vinod Kumar Sharma, who was to join AIIMS Bhopal as the director also refused to join in October. Sources claim that he did not wanted to come to Bhopal AIIMS.
Apart from these hyped controversies, students have always been complaining about the problems in hostel and even sexual harassment by senior resident doctor but most of them went unreported to save the already distorted image of the institute.
