Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) gets between 8,000 to 10,000 patients to be exact. And not all them can afford to pay for their rehabilitation, so now AIIMS has come up with the an ‘Adopt a Patient’ initiative. An individual or an organisation can help patients once they’re out of treatment in the hospital. The program will be launched on June 4 by AIIMS’s director, M C Misra.

AIIMS says approximately 40 per cent of its patients cannot afford even the basic costs and there are also cases — particularly in cases of spinal surgery — where people are left behind by families who cannot afford post-operative care. The good news is that there’s no shortage of good samaritans in Delhi, it seems. “There is no dearth of people or organisations wanting to help the needy,” said Dr Deepak Agrawal, of AIIMS. “We get dozens of mails daily requesting verification of patients for whom they want to donate.”

Yesterday, AIIMS did a trial run of the Adopt a Patient program and within two hours, it had received donations worth Rs 14,000.

While this isn’t going to help people like Asha Bariya, who was turned away by two hospitals despite being in labour, Adopt a Patient could be a lifesaver for many patients at AIIMS.