Team News Riveting
New Delhi, September 1
Lt General Ajith Nilakantan, a native of Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, has taken over the command of the Army Hospital Research and Referral in Delhi on Friday.
Army Hospital (Research and Referral), also known as Army Hospital (R&R), AH (R&R) and RR Hospital, is the apex flagship medical care centre for the armed forces of India. Completed in the mid 1990s, the hospital, which includes a teaching hospital and nursing college, is located in Delhi Cantonment, New Delhi. It is the only Armed Forces Medical Services hospital to be commanded by a Lieutenant General rank officer and provides for 27 sub-specialties. The hospital is also meant to cater to the President of India and the chiefs of the military.
An alumnus of Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, Ajith was commissioned into the Army Medical Corps in April 1987. He was born to Nilakantan Nair (late) who retired as Senior Accts Officer, AG’s office, Thiruvananthapuram, and Kanakavally Amma, who was the principal of MG College in Thiruvananthapuram and other NSS colleges, at Shastri Nagar in Karamana, Thiruvananthapuram.
He was working earlier as the Director General of Hospital Services (Armed Forces) and was the first Keralite to hold the post. Ajith commanded a multi-speciality hospital in Pathankot (Punjab) and the super-speciality Command Hospital in Kolkata, during the pandemic.
He is an accomplished head and neck Oncosurgeon and was trained at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. He headed the department of ENT-head and neck surgery at Command Hospital (Eastern Command), Base Hospital Delhi Cantonment, Army College of Medical Sciences, Delhi, and the RR Hospital. He was also the professor and head (ENT-HNS) at Armed Forces Medical College, Pune.
