Delhi AIIMS Rheumatology Department becomes operational, gets dedicated beds for patients

The upgrade was announced in a statement by Professor Uma Kumar, the founder and head of the department, which was set up in 2015, 8 years ago.

AIIMS Delhi | Representative Image | ThePrint

New Delhi: After a seven-year wait, the All India Medical Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, one of the country’s foremost medical institutions, now has beds for patients in its rheumatology department.

The department, set up in 2015, did not have the facility until now to house patients with rheumatological disorders.

The upgrade was announced in a statement by Professor Uma Kumar, the founder and head of the department. “Finally dedicated beds under the Rheumatology Department for patients with rheumatological disorders after a long wait of 7 years,” Dr Kumar said on Twitter, adding that the move also paves way for a DM (Doctorate of Medicine) course at AIIMS.

Till 2015, the year of its official establishment, the department existed as a subset of the Department of Medicine and functioned as the Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology division.

Rheumatology is a branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis and management of disorders whose defining feature is inflammation in the bones, muscles, joints, and internal organs.

According to the department page on the AIIMS website, which was last updated in February of this year, it provides outpatient services, a “state of the art” Rheumatology Day Care facility for intravenous infusions (biological agents, chemotherapeutic drugs, steroid pulse etc), interventions (joint injections, various biopsies), and musculoskeletal ultrasound.

It also has a clinical immunology laboratory where such diseases are researched. An approximate figure of 50,000 lab tests are performed each year in the department. Nearly 40,000 patients have received “high-quality” services in the past year.

Earlier this month, a rheumatology clinic also became operational in AIIMS Bhubaneswar, as reported in The Statesman.

“Musculoskeletal disorders are prevalent in 15 per cent –20 per cent of the Indian population. Arthritis affects more than 180 million people in India. It is estimated that almost 10 lakh people in India suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, which is a painful condition. Rheumatological diseases can affect all age groups and require prolonged therapy because of their chronic nature and relapsing course,” AIIMS’ Dr Anupam Dey said.