FONDATION DAY TODAY Chandigarh, July 15 The premier health institution of the region, the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), has completed 56 years of its existence. The institute, which will celebrate its Foundation Day tomorrow, now caters to nearly 10,000 patients daily. Conceived in 1961 with the concurrence of the Planning Commission, the institute started functioning in 1962. The institute was formally inaugurated on July 7, 1963, by then Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. Within a short period of four years, the PGI was declared as an “Institute of national importance” by an Act of Parliament on April 1, 1967. The first batch of postgraduates was admitted to the PGI in January 1963. The only institute of its kind north of Delhi, the PGIMER caters to a large number of patients from neighbouring states of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The hospital has almost 2,000 beds and has an OPD attendance of 9,000 to 11,000 patients (approximately) per day. State-of-the-art facilities The institute added another feather in its cap by commissioning a new state-of-the-art SPECT gamma camera (D-SPECT), a first of its kind in the whole country, to the already existing nuclear cardiology facility of the Nuclear Medicine Department. The equipment will be primarily used in evaluating the patients with cardiac diseases especially coronary artery disease. New cancer treatment The Department of Radiodiagnosis acquired the state-of-the-art machine for doing cryoablation of tumours in patients, who are not suitable to be treated with surgery. This machine is the first of its kind installed anywhere in the country. The department is now fully equipped to treat unresectable cancers with all ablation modalities like radiofrequency ablation, microwave ablation, irreversible electroporation, high intensity focused ultrasound and now cryoablation, available under one roof. Sequencing facility The next generation sequencing facility was inaugurated at the Advanced Paediatric Centre dedicated to patient care in making important diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic decisions regarding various diseases especially inherited genetic conditions and cancers. Liver transplant for women The PGIMER made it possible for a liver transplant female patient to successfully deliver a child. It is a first such case at the institute. The PGIMER accomplished another major feat in the complicated transplant surgery by successfully performing its first ever simultaneous liver and kidney transplant in a terminally ill patient suffering from end stage liver and renal failure. Neurosurgeons of the PGIMER reported on minimally invasive spinal endoscopy for large intradural spinal tumors in one of the most reputed “Spine Journal”. This is probably one of the first in world literature to describe such minimally invasive neurosurgical spinal endoscopy for tumors as large as 7 cm. Staff strength The PGIMER has nearly 500 faculty members, 1,100 resident doctors (including sponsored/foreign national categories), 2,363 nurses and 507 nursing students, 445 PhD and paramedical students, 640 junior residents and 262 senior residents. New projects at institute About new projects, Prof Jagat Ram, Director, PGIMER, said a state-of-the-art 250-bed hospital close to Nehru Hospital was almost ready and construction of 430-bed Mother and Child Centre and 300-bed Nerurosciences Centre would start soon. With 33 cadaver donations since January 2018 till date, the PGIMER has to its credit 175 cadaver organ donations, giving a second lease of life to 417 end stage organ failure patients. This year, 67 kidneys, 16 livers, two hearts, seven pancreas and 776 corneas were harvested and transplanted at the PGIMER. Surgery on two-day old infant Newborn robotic surgery at the PGIMER was done for the first time. A team of surgeons at the Department of Paediatric Surgery successfully treated a two-day newborn with robotic surgery. This is the first time in Asia that such a small baby was operated with the robotic facility.

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