AIMS Services

Free Medical Camps

AIMS provides free medical treatment in remote poor areas. In 2004, its departments ran 58 health camps. Eye camps screen for curable cataract conditions and send patients to AIMS for free operations. AIMS Mobile Medical Assistance takes free medical care out to remote tribal villages. The villagers are screened for major diseases and given free medicines. When necessary, cases are referred to AIMS for further free treatment.

Special Outreach Projects

Screening for cleft lip and lip-palate defects
Cleft palates and lip-palate defects are the fourth most common deformities in the world. 35,000 babies in India are born with such conditions every year. The Head and Neck Department provides reconstructive surgeries and runs regular free screening camps to locate and treat new cases.

Monitoring rheumatic heart disease
The Indian Council of Medical Research has identified AIMS as one of the
three national centres for the monitoring of rheumatic fever and rheumatic
heart disease. Under the guidance of the Paediatric Cardiac Services,
the project determines the trends of the diseases in school children
and educates the public about preventative measures.

Diabetes prevention
Diabetes is one of the major life-threatening diseases in Kerala. AIMS Department of Endocrinology set up the Amrita Diabetes Welfare Society to increase awareness of the disease and to provide free insulin for poor patients. The Association holds exhibitions, and medical camps are regularly held to promote preventive measures.

Primary Healthcare Training
-Kochi

The Community Medicine Department of AIMS School of Medicine is training dedicated doctors through its innovative education policy “SOPAL,” which promotes “Sharing, Observation, Participation and Action by students in Local communities.” The department has trained hundreds of tribal villagers as healthcare workers, bringing them to the school to learn basics in medical care. In turn, the community-medicine students and their teachers go to the trainees’ tribal villages to provide them appropriate medical care.

Pain and Palliative Home Care

The department gives loving care to patients with terminal diseases, especially those who are unable to travel to the hospital and who need pain relief. The home-care unit offers its services free, providing homebased psychological support for the whole family, as well as medical care for the patient.

The department started in 1999. It treats 75,000 patients annually, all of whom receive free treatment. Most hospitals are not interested in providing such a service since it is not financially remunerative.

Telemedicine

In 2002, AIMS established the first Telemedicine Centre in Kerala in partnership with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The centre allows medical information to be processed from remote centres throughout India via satellite, including Sabarimala, Amritapuri and the Andaman Islands. Telemedicine was used extensively to facilitate MAM’s relief work following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

AIMS also operates a Mobile Telemedicine Unit, the size of a city bus, which brings sophisticated medical care to remote areas. The Telemedicine Unit was sent to Bihar by train to assist MAM’s flood-relief operations there in 2008.