more-in “Don’t send us recommendation letters for treatment. Instead, try and work for betterment of medical care in your area.” This is the latest appeal by doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to MPs and MLAs who, they say, have been flooding them with letters seeking treatment, medical investigations and bed for “their” patients. “Please don’t refer people who don’t need specialised care here,” said the AIIMS Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA). AIIMS, they said, is a tertiary level hospital which caters to the poorest of the poor from across the country. “Nobody should be allowed to misuse this facility,” said the doctors, in an open letter to the people’s elected representatives. The doctors have also demanded that people’s elected representatives should copy to the Prime Minister’s Office — to maintain accountability — the ‘recommendation letters’ that are forwarded to AIIMS doctors. The RDA said in the letter, “We request MLAs and MPs that whenever they send any recommendation letter a copy should be send to PMO and Health Ministry demanding the same facilities for healthcare in their area, which they think is only available in the tertiary care hospital in Delhi.” They added that around 63 million people are faced with poverty annually due to out of pocket expenditure on healthcare. “If we add the money spent on transport, accommodation and survival in [a] metropolitan [city], then you can imagine the situation...,” added the letter. AIIMS RDA president Harjit Singh Bhatti said, “Doctors at AIIMS are fed up with recommendation letters for admission in AIIMS. We get several hundred recommended letters daily for early treatment and admission.” “Doctors says that MPs and MLAs write letters to give false solutions to patient and this seems to be part of their daily work. Each day we get MPs and MLAs writing someone’s recommendation on their letterhead. It is difficult to admit the recommended patient by avoiding the need of the already existing patient. In such a situation, the problem of that patient increases,” he added. The RDA has said that anyone writing recommendation letter should remember that AIIMS in Delhi has limited beds, doctors, space and resource. “We can’t have a tertiary hospital dealing with any and every kind of medical care. It’s a drain on the system and patients coming in with these recommendation,” they said.

Stay updated with all the Delhi Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.