IPD Tower & Institute of Cardiology – A Landmark Vision for SMS Hospital

SMS Medical College & Hospital had grown into a major tertiary-care and teaching institution serving an exceptionally large patient population. During this phase, SMS had expanded to 43 departments with 681 postgraduate seats, daily OPD attendance exceeding 10,000 patients, daily IPD admissions exceeding 600 patients, and annual OPD attendance of more than 40 lakh. The rising patient load, increasing number of departments and continued expansion of super-speciality services created the need for infrastructure of international standards. This became the foundation for the proposed state-of-the-art IPD Tower at SMS Medical College & Hospital.

The growth was not limited to patient numbers. New and expanding super-speciality areas during this phase included Sports Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Geriatric Medicine, Tropical Medicine, Clinical Immunology & Rheumatology, Uro-Oncology, Pediatric Urology, Pediatric Nephrology, Organ Transplant Anaesthesia & Critical Care, and Interventional Radiology. Against this backdrop, the IPD Tower was envisioned as a major expansion of SMS Hospital’s capacity and a platform for advanced patient care, teaching and specialised services.

Contemporary reporting around the April 2022 foundation-stone programme described the project as a 24-storey hospital tower planned with 1,200 additional beds, teaching rooms, ICUs, 20 OPDs, four cath labs, 100 OPD registration counters, a rooftop helipad and a Medical Martyr Memorial. The project was intended to strengthen organ-transplant programmes and bring multiple advanced services together within an integrated hospital complex. The foundation stone was laid in April 2022. Contemporary reports identified Dr. Sudhir Bhandari, then Principal & Controller of SMS Medical College & Hospital, among the key institutional leaders associated with the project’s conception and development.

The supplied SMS journey document attributes the proposal to the institution’s growing need for international-standard facilities and acknowledges the support of the Government of Rajasthan and the architectural contribution of Anoop Bhartaria. Government environmental-clearance records from 2021 also list the project as “IPD Tower & Institute of Cardiology Building” for SMS Medical College & Hospital, with Dr. Sudhir Bhandari named as the authorised representative. The project therefore represents more than a new building: it reflects the larger institutional transition toward expanded tertiary care, super-speciality services, advanced diagnostics, critical care and medical education during this phase of SMS Medical College & Hospital.