BHUBANESWAR: AIIMS Bhubaneswar will resume walk-in OPD services from June 28 after assessing the pandemic situation.
It had closed its walk-in OPD services since April 26 in view of rising Covid cases and to prevent the spread of infection.
“Given the marginal decrease in Covid cases, it has been decided by the competent authority to restart our walk-in OPD services from June 28 with a limit on calling patients in all the departments,” said the hospital statement issued on Thursday.
Sachidananda Mohanty, medical superintendent of AIIMS Bhubaneswar, said they will initially call a few patients in OPDs of all departments.
“Depending on the situation, we will gradually increase the number of OPD registrations.
Our services through telemedicine and AIIMS Bhubaneswar Swasthya app will continue as usual,” he added.
He further said that people can contact the hospital’s 24×7 helpdesk for any information.
More than 3000 patients were coming to the hospital’s OPD daily before closure of the walk-in OPD.
The national institution had closed its walk-in OPD services from April 26 for a temporary period, but it had continued indoor patient department (IPD) services, trauma and emergency services, daycare services, radiotherapy, dialysis, emergency and life saving surgery, telemedicine and tele-consultation services, anaesthesiology (PAC and pain clinic), immunization and vaccination programmes.
The hospital had also closed OPD services between July 10 and November 2 last year during the first wave of the Covid-19.
Initially, the number of registrations was restricted to 30 patients per department per day until November 8 last year.
From November 9, the number was increased to 50 patients per department per day for a week.
Later the patient flow was normalised.
According to official sources, the hospital has 900 IPD beds and 139 ICU beds.
A portion of these beds have been channelised for Covid treatment.