Patna AIIMS has entered into an agreement with UK-based National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to educate its students on how to tackle emergency cases.
The agreement comes barely a few months after the inception of the institute, a feat that Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) could not achieve for years. The lack of emergency preparedness at the PMCH became evident during the recent Chhath stampede that claimed 17 lives and left several injured.
According to the collaboration, the UK-based institute will help JPNAIIMS students to learn about community emergency preparedness, G.K. Singh, the director of the institute said.
"The recent stampede in Patna suggested that health hubs in Bihar are inefficient to deal with emergency situations. Therefore, to make our students efficient to deal with cases of emergency, we thought of taking expert guidance and our collaboration with the UK-based institute will ensure that," the director said.
Sources said the two other areas on which Patna AIIMS and NICE will work together are teaching and medicine.
Experts from NICE visited Patna AIIMS on Wednesday to discuss issues related to the collaboration.
Director Singh said both parties are "very excited" about the tie-up. "It is not that only they are going to guide us. We will also share our strengths with them. Experts who visited the institute were impressed to learn about our MBBS curriculum. They also want to take a few inputs from us and we are really excited about it," added Singh.
On the strength of NICE in community emergency preparedness, Singh said: "NICE is known for its emergency preparedness. The experts have trained organisations, government bodies on what best can be done during an emergency situation. One of their strengths is that they give a special kind of training to ambulance services. So we are hoping to learn several new things from them."
Pilly Stuart, one of the members of NICE, said: "We are keen to establish a relationship with Patna AIIMS. Apart from sharing insights on community emergency preparedness, we would also focus on clinical research."