NEW DELHI, November 22: The VVIP patients undergoing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) are becoming a source of inconvenience for the public. As these patients have important visitors coming to see them, the relatives of lesser mortals are increasingly facing harassment at the hands of their security personnel.The hospital wards, on the other hand, are turning into high-security zones, with gun-toting SPG guards often outnumbering the doctors and their patients. The neurosciences centre of AIIMS, where former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao has been admitted, was the latest nuisance area.Amrit Naina Kaur, a resident of West Patel Nagar, was among those who were denied entry to the neurosciences centre on November 18. She says: ``I came all the way from West Patel Nagar to see my relative, but the security personnel pushed us into the STD booth right below the neurocentre saying a VVIP was coming''.The VVIP in question, Vice-President Krishan Kant, did eventually arrive well past six when the official visiting hours (between 4 and 6 p.m.) was over. As a result, Kaur and at least 1,000 other people had to return disappointed. Before that, former president Shanker Dayal Sharma, and special secretary to the Prime Minister Brijesh Mishra, were among the VVIP visitors who had come to see Rao.``The centre where Rao is admitted, incidentally, has at least 1,600 patients undergoing treatment at any point of time. Naturally, the relatives of all these patients are inconvenienced whenever it is cordoned off during visiting hours due to VVIP movements,'' a doctor admits.Since the cardio-thoracic centre also shares the main entry with the neurosciences centre, a VVIP visitor at one centre usually affects movement in both. And as one disappointed visitor, Sujoy, put it, the only solution is to have separate visiting hours for VVIPs. When contacted, B.K. Dash, spokesperson for AIIMS, maintained that the authorities themselves often tried to schedule the VVIP visits outside public hours when the security threat is perceived to be minimal, but VVIP schedules sometimes compelled otherwise.``The security personnel usually coordinate with us to avoid such inconveniences,'' he maintains. But for people like Kaur, the incident is more of a recurring nightmare.
