New Delhi, Feb 23 (IANS) At least seven senior doctors have quit the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) during the last year, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told the Rajya Sabha Tuesday.

A total of seven faculty members - three professors, three associate professors and one additional professor - have left AIIMS in one year, he said in a written reply, adding they had 'either resigned or taken voluntary retirement from service on personal grounds'.

Internal conflict among faculty members and management and lucrative offers from private hospitals are said to be the reasons behind such moves. However, the minister was silent on these causes.

Those who have left the institute are Rohini Handa and Ashok Kumar (both professors in the department of medicine), R.K. Sharma, an additional professor of forensic medicine, S.C. Tiwari (professor in nephrology department), Sumit Singh (associate professor of neurology), K. K. Handa (associate professor ENT) and Rajiv Gupta (associate professor of medicine).

Gupta is the last one to quit AIIMS on Jan 31, 2010.