Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sevagram, is the first Institute of modern medicine that is placed in a rural setting in India. Based on Gandhian ideology, it was established in 1969 as a Gandhi Centenary Project and takes pride in the fact that it’s Kasturba Hospital, started in 1944, is the only hospital started by the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi himself. The Institute’s inception goes back to the freedom struggle, when the seed was sown. Late Dr. Sushila Nayar, the Founder Director of the Institute, was arrested along with Kasturba and Mahatma Gandhi during the Quit India Movement and was kept in detention with them in the Aga Khan Palace at Pune, where she had an opportunity to observe and understand Gandhiji from close quarters. She ealized that he was a Statesman with a vision, longer than life. After their release from the prison when Gandhiji returned to Sevagram, he found that the village often faced a number of epidemics, resulting in high morbidity and mortality. So he asked Dr. Sushila Nayar to have some health facility and the result was Kasturba Hospital in the memory of Ba who had passed away on 22 February, 1944 while in detention at Aga Khan Palace. The 15-bedded hospital was actually for the Women and Children of the village. The seed to serve the poor and needy was sown so deep in the mind of Dr. Sushila Nayar that when she went to Johns Hopkins, USA to specialize in Cardiology, it did not interest her and she shifted to Doctorate in Public Health.



In 1962, when Dr. Sushila Nayar became the Union Health Minister, she became aware of the difficulties in finding qualified doctors for serving in rural areas. She also realized that Primary Health Centres had been set up but the doctors were reluctant to go and serve the villagers. The Government had been trying to improve medical care in the rural areas but about 1/3rd of the Primary Health Centres, each catering to about 80,000 or more population, were without doctors. The then Prime Minister Late Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, while addressing the Central Council of Health Care in July 1965, suggested to the Union Health Minister, to start Medical Colleges in rural areas so that young doctors trained in the rural settings would have better understanding of the rural health problems and would be better placed to attend to the health problems of the villagers. Dr. Sushila Nayar a young medical graduate, suggested that the first rural Medical College in the country should be started at Sevagram to be run by the registered Kasturba Health Society, Sevagram. The proposal was sent to the Planning Commission and was approved. The National Committee for Gandhi Centenary celebrations, with the President of India as the President and the Prime Minister as the Chairman of the Executive Committee gave their blessings to the proposal of Dr. Sushila Nayar and the first rural Medical College of the country at Sevagram was included in the Gandhi Centenary Programme. It was resolved that the expenditure would be shared by the Govt. of India, Govt. of Maharashtra and Kasturba Health Society in proportion of 50:25:25, and in 1969 the first batch of 60 students was admitted. Specific reservations were kept for students coming from rural background and are still being kept, fulfilling the dreams of the great visionaries Dr. Sushila Nayar, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri and Gandhiji himself.



To Evolve An Integrated Pattern of Medical Education and Health Care by using Rural Medical College and Hospital as a Base for Delivery of Such a System .



OBJECTIVES



MEDICAL EDUCATION

- To provide value based & cost effective medical education.

- To train for serving urban as well as rural masses in a cost effective way.

- To train in and out of the hospital walls in rural communities for better understanding and learning for the needs of society.

- To train for research by learning through - Service oriented research for the local needs and global health issues.



HEALTH SERVICES

- To provide state of art health care facilities at affordable cost

- To evolve a comprehensive health care delivery system consonant to needs of communities.

- To encourage use of modern modalities only when essential.

- To have an in built system for service to the needy in emergency without any financial road blocks.

- To reach those who can not reach the Health facilities for needed health care.

- To encourage & empower communities & village workers for primary health care

- To create health consciousness by creating a system of Annual Family Registration/Non profit Insurance Schemes.



RESEARCH

- To conduct facility as well as community based research in areas like maternal, neonatal, child health, infectious, nutritional, lifestyle disorders etc.

- To explore Traditional Indian systems of Medicine.



Dean,

Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences,

Sevagram,

District Wardha,

Maharashtra - 442102

India

Phone: 07152 -284341 to 284355 (Ext. 209)

Fax: 07152-284333, 284220

Email: deanmgim@rediffmail.com

Website: www.mgims.ac.in