A state of the art Cancer Institute is coming up at the Sher I Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Soura, Srinagar and it is expected to be operationalised by the end of this year.This was informed in the 44th meeting of the SKIMS Governing Body meeting here today.Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, who is the chairperson of the Governing Body, presided over the meeting.Minister for Health & Medical Education, Bali Bhagat; Minister for Education, Syed Altaf Bukhari and Minister of State for Health & Medical Education, Asiea Naqash attended the meeting.Addressing the meeting, the Chief Minister underscored the need for taking SKIMS to higher levels of excellence and make it among the top healthcare institutes of the country. She impressed upon the management of the institute to earmark considerable amount of funds and manpower for research activities besides its role as a major tertiary care hospital in the State.During the meeting the Chief Minister reviewed the functioning of SKIMS in general and performance of some recent technological interventions like PET scan etc. She directed timely procurement and induction of equipments, diagnostic kits and other accessories for the upcoming Cancer Centre to save the time in operationalising of the same.
The Chief Minister was informed that the PET scan inducted recently at the institute is giving satisfactory results. Earlier, patients had to go to outside the State for utilising facilities of the PET scan.Mehbooba Mufti was also informed that pursuant to her decision of shifting the control of Sumbal health centre to SKIMS during her public outreach programme at Bandipur, the hospital authorities have decided to develop it as a Satellite Centre for modern tertiary care. An action plan for the same has been drawn up, she was informed.Other issues of management, expansion, procurement etc. of the hospital also came up for discussion during the meeting.Chief Secretary, B. B. Vyas; Principal Secretary, Home, R. K Goyal; Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Rohit Kansal; Principal Secretary, Health & Medical Education Dr. Pawan Kotwal; Principal Secretary, Finance, Navin Chaudhary; Director SKIMS, Prof. Omar Javed Shah; Principals of GMC, Srinagar and Jammu and SKIMS Medical College, Srinagar, besides Prof. M. S. Khuroo, Prof. Khursheed Iqbal and Prof. Altaf Ramzan who are also members of the Governing Body attended the meeting.