Shillong, Dec 3: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Saturday unveiled the inauguration plaque of the 100-bedded Maternal and Child Health Hospital located at Panaliar, Jowai, West Jaintia Hills.
Inaugurated the 100 bedded Maternal and Child Health Hospital at Jowai. This addition will improve the provision of healthcare services that is accessible to the people of Jowai and nearby areas@mansukhmandviya pic.twitter.com/QTuhR9mumg
— Conrad Sangma (@SangmaConrad) December 3, 2022
Stating that one of the top priorities of the Government is to provide better medical healthcare facilities to the people, the CM said in the last two years the Covid pandemic brought out much of the shortcomings in the State’s healthcare sector. He added that the Government has made a concerted effort to upscale infrastructure and strengthen healthcare facilities in the State.
“During the pandemic we saw unprecedented challenges that came in front of us especially in terms of our healthcare infrastructure. It was during those times that many shortcomings, many areas where we need to invest, and the overall infrastructure in the health sector came to light. Those challenges also presented an opportunity for us to improve the overall health sector as much as we could,” he said.
Informing the people about the different initiatives under the health sector, Sangma said the Government has renovated and added additional capacity at 80 health facilities over the last one year and close to 1,000 beds have been added to the infrastructure capacity of the State.
Furthermore, he said that almost 200 health facilities have been enabled with solar power and energy efficient equipment and added that the Government will be spending more than Rs. 250 Cr to further the medical infrastructure in the state. As such, Rs. 150 crores have been earmarked for construction of 300 Sub-Centres in the state, Rs. 12.5 crores have been earmarked for setting up of 10 Integrated Public Health Laboratories (IPHLs) and 2 Critical Care Blocks will be set up in the state at a total cost of Rs. 47.5 Cr which will add 100 more beds with modern facilities and advance surgery capabilities.
The Chief Minister also stated that Meghalaya is probably the fourth highest spender in the country in terms of the percentage of GDP that is spent on the health sector.
He also informed the gathering that the State has come up with a recruitment board to address the challenges of overall recruitment of trained personnel especially doctors and specialists.
“We have overall challenges in terms of recruitment especially in the health sector and that is why to overcome those challenges we have also come out with a separate recruitment board for doctors and specialists. And within the next few months, we expect that through this medical recruitment board, all the positions for doctors and specialists will be filled up at the earliest. Health has been an area, which is of great importance to our state and the government of Meghalaya has responded appropriately in order to meet those challenges,” he said.
