AIIMS Bibinagar director Amita Agarwal inaugurating the country’s first AIIMS-run Community Radio Station, which began its trial run on Monday.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Around 3 p.m. at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-Bibinagar, as outpatient departments begin to empty and the day’s clinical rush starts to fade, a different kind of consultation begins. And this one does not happen inside wards or clinics, but over the airwaves. Tune in to 89.6 FM, and doctors can be heard speaking not to a waiting room, but to an entire community.AIIMS-Bibinagar has launched the country’s first AIIMS-run Community Radio Station (CRS), a platform aimed at transforming how public health information is shared and consumed. The community radio station began its trial run on Monday, with AIIMS-Bibinagar director Amita Agarwal inaugurating the facility.For listeners, the entry point is simple: a radio dial turned to 89.6 FM. But what unfolds after that is designed to be far more engaging. The station currently broadcasts within a radius of about 10 kilometres around Bibinagar.“At present, we are running one hour per day, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.,” A. Serma Subathra, chairperson, Community Radio Station Operational Committee said, adding that the timing has been chosen to accommodate doctors’ schedules, as mornings are occupied with patient care and outpatient duties.The plan is to gradually expand programming to two, three, and eventually five hours a day, extending across the week.
