Ayurvedic college will be shifted to Gandhinagar

To accommodate more patients and increase the number of seats for Bachelor of Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) and MD in Ayurveda, the state government has decided to relocate the Government Akhandanand Ayurvedic College and Hospital.At present the hospital is located opposite Victoria garden, Ellisbridge.'It will be shifted to Kolavda village of Gandhinagar and will have 14 undergraduate and six postgraduate departments," said Dr Medha Jani, director of Indian System of Medicine and Homeopathy (ISMH).This is a much awaited decision from the state health department, as the current building of the college is unable to accommodate more seats or beds in the hospital, which is run inside the college premises. According to principal Dr GK Mansuri, the current building is too old and requires periodic maintenance after the 2001 earthquake.He also admitted that it was not possible to make any new construction on the current land or building, due to space constraints. "The seats in the college depend on the number of beds in the hospital. Since we can't increase the beds, we can't increase the student intake either," said Dr Mansuri.At present, there are 75 seats for the BAMS course and only 11 seats for the MD course in the college. Since the college has only a 120-bed hospital attached to it, the number of seats cannot be increased as per the rules of the Gujarat Ayurveda University, Jamnagar.The college currently has 14 departments in UG including panchkarma, anatomy, physiology, toxicology, pharmacy, and two departments in PG level, panchkarma and medicine.Apart from these, the state health department is planning to add four more PG departments in the new college-MD in surgery, gynecology and ENT. "Very few colleges in the state have MD in surgery or gynecology," said Dr Mansuri.According to Dr Jani, the new college will have a 400-bed hospital, which will allow almost 120 seats of BAMS and 25 seats of MD, which is double the current capacity."This new college will be built as a model Ayurvedic college for the state," she added.