The Delhi prisons authority has planned to set up a mini-operation theatre within the Tihar complex to curb the movement of prisoners to various hospitals for treatment. An officer from the prison department stated that the OT will help to reduce the outside referrals. He added that the inmates are often referred to an outside hospital for skin sutures, wound debridement, pus drainage, biopsy sampling, cyst removal, etc.

Mr. Sandeep Goel, Director-General, Tihar stated that the OTs will be used for minor surgical procedures initially. Later, when the OT will be fully functioning, major surgeries will also be conducted. He added that they are expecting 5-6 surgeries to be conducted in a day where the visiting surgeons will come from two different hospitals.

The move will help in reducing the resources spent on transporting the inmates to the hospitals and curb the smuggling of surgical blades. According to the data from the prison authorities, 26, 225, and 40,416 inmates were treated in OPD in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Also, 3,485 inmates got treated in IPD in 2022 and 6,108 in 2021.