Meghalaya wants an Institute of National Importance (INI) status for NEIGRIHMS. Health Minister Dr Ampareen Lyngdoh on Thursday said she will be meeting the Union Health Minister and highlight the fact that NEIGRIHMS is not having the National institute status like that of AIMS and other institutions.
Talking to mediapersons, Dr Lyngdoh said, “We want to take before the purview of the health Minister government of India, Is to discuss the matters related to NEIGRIHMS the very fact that NEIGRIHMS continues to have a status not a national Institute, like, AIMS and others. So we want that to get sorted out.”
The government of India gives the status of ‘Institute of National Importance’ (INI) to top institutes in India through the act of Parliament.
Further, she also said that during her meeting she will also stress on the need to fasttrack the operationalisation of the cancer Hospital adjacent to NEIGRIHMS.
“We want a fast track and operationalisation of the cancer Hospital Of adjacent to the NEIGRIHMS Hospital in the same campus. That is very important …..that’s going to be a very important project. So we would like to bring it to the attention of the honourable Minister of Health for the Union government,” the Minister said.
The state government has decided to seek Centre’s support to further strengthen health centres across Meghalaya.
She said there is a need for the government of India to special focus on Meghalaya considering that services provided by institutions like sub centres, PHCs, CHCs – which are in distant locations, are still inadequate.
“So the government of Meghalaya wants to bring this before the union ministry so that we may get adequate funding to further strengthen our tertiary care centre, PHCs, CHCs and sub centres,” Lyngdoh said.
On the problem of acute shortage of manpower, the minister said, “As a department we have collected all the information. Many vacancies are yet to be sanctioned in these various facilities so that is also a serious concern for us because everywhere that I go during my inspections and visits, I have seen there is always an acute shortage of staff.”
“I have also apprised the chief minister on this matter and I await that the sanctioning of these posts is done in a fast track mode otherwise our facilities will suffer.. Sometimes the smallest of requirements like drivers, ward assistance or multitasking personnel, let alone the technical staff like lab attendance, OT attendance and various other vacancies that are urgently required to make these facilities fully functional.”
Lyngdoh informed that “a partial petition has already been made by the department of health to the personnel and finance departments for the necessary sanctioning and necessary notes for these various vacancies”
The minister said that the meeting also discussed the need to ensure that the personnel of the health department like doctors and other specialised staff should be able to function primarily as doctors or designated posts like lab attendance and nurses as “the administrative work that is put on the shoulders of these staff usually distract them from the actual commitment of services for the people.”
Lyngdoh said, “I have requested the officers to immediately look at all of the road sectors so that we can initiate discussion with the deputy chief minister in charge PWD so that we can ensure that this also doesn’t become a reason why centres are not functioning efficiently.”
“We also have power issues in certain facilities and we have been assured by the chief minister in an earlier discussion that we must converge and have alternative power services installed in all of these centres so that there is no stagnation of work due to non availability of power supply,” she added.