Pune: The Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune, has established a laboratory and museum of Hospital Lighting, which is the first of its kind in the country. It was inaugurated by Lt Gen MK Unni, Director General, Armed Forces Medical Services and Senior Colonel Commandant, Army Medical Corps, on Monday.

According to Air Marshal CK Ranjan, Director and Commandant, AFMC, the facility will help in establishing new guidelines and standards of lighting in hospitals, since optimum lighting plays a multifaceted role in the functioning of modern hospitals.

According to Brig Sunil Kant, Professor and Head, Department of Hospital Administration, AFMC, the laboratory and museum will help in sensitising healthcare administrators and planners regarding comfortable, safe and environment-friendly utilisation of lights in hospitals.

The museum traces the evolution of lighting, with displays including the first ever bulb, invented in 1879 called ‘Edison’s incandescent bulb’, a paper lantern used by Florence Nightingale and a lamp invented by Frederick De Moleyns. There is a compilation of scientific literature on lighting, display of light sensors of various types, devices like a cell phone UV sanitiser that can help disinfect mobile phones of health care workers and modern light-based equipment for non-interventional diagnostics in health care.

AFMC is a premier medical institute, which provides training to undergraduate and post-graduate medical and nursing students with assured career prospects in the defence services. The institute was set up on May 1, 1948, by an act of Parliament of India.

The Command Hospital (Southern Command), the largest hospital of the Indian Army, which is now attached with AFMC, was established in 1869. It was one of three military hospitals established at and around Pune (then called Poona) in the same year. It was initially the British Military Hospital, Wanowrie.