Baba Raghav Das Medical College

Baba Raghav Das Medical College is a medical college in Gorakhpur, India. It is run by the Government of Uttar Pradesh.The hospital affiliated to the College is the only tertiary care centre in a 300 km2 region around Gorakhpur. This region has seen severe annual encephalitis outbreaks, and the hospital attracts a large number of poor patients from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Nepal. During 1978-2011, over 30,000 patients died of encephalitis at the hospital, many of them children. The trend continued during 2012-2017, when over 3,000 children died of encephalitis at the hospital. A number of child deaths in August 2017 attracted international media attention, although there has actually been a sharp decline in child deaths compared to the previous years.HistoryThe BRD Medical College was established in 1969, and is affiliated to Gorakhpur University. It was initially developed as a centre for treating mosquito-borne diseases. The Nehru Hospital is affiliated with the college. It has 700 beds, with an additional 108 beds in Epidemic Ward.The college in run by the state government. In August 2014, the Union Health Ministry led by Harsh Vardhan announced a plan to modernise the insitute's infrastructure, and to transform into a "super-speciality facility" on par with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.