Health Minister Dr. Ampareen Lyngdoh on Wednesday said to meet the urgent need meet the shortage of specialised doctors in the state, Meghalaya Government is providing Post graduate diploma courses to the fresh MBBS graduates.
The health minister informed that there are also a huge number of specialist doctors yet to be filled up in the state.
“I think we are at 177 and the national standard is about 300 plus,” she said.
Speaking to reporters, Dr. Lyngdoh said, “We have got into a very good practice where we have said we cannot wait for the central recruiting agency, whereas we look at it as health being an important sector… let us have an agency within the health system which anyways is qualified enough to interview and recruit these doctors.”
She also informed that another 50 -60 plus doctors are already going for these specialized courses.
“ Then the new recruits, even a lot of them have gone for those specialisations,” he added.
Further, the Minister also clarified that rather than not having specialists at all, these are doctors and now going for a diploma programme. These diploma holder doctors will work to meet the demand of the specialized doctors.
“We have three centres of specialisation for doctors in the state of Meghalaya itself. They are all diploma programmes so rather than not having a specialist at all, these are doctors and now going for a diploma programme,” Lyngdoh said.
It may be mentioned that last year, the Government of Meghalaya signed an MoU with the Government of Tamil Nadu through which Tamil Nadu has agreed to support Meghalaya for recruitment and training of medical professionals.
This is a first-of-its-kind medical partnership between the two Indian states for collaboration on knowledge sharing, capacity building and improving health service delivery.