Minister in-charge Health and Family Welfare Ampareen Lyngdoh has sought a report on the status of the government’s decision to set up three medical colleges in Meghalaya.
“We are progressing and I have requested officers to immediately draw a line as to what is the status of each of these medical colleges,” Lyngdoh told reporters.
On August 25, last year the State Cabinet had announced its decision to set up three medical colleges, of which two are government and one private – at Tura, West Garo Hills, Shillong and Ri Bhoi in the Khasi Hills region.
“I will be sitting with my colleagues in the cabinet to get all necessary assistance that is required in order to meet the norms for starting a medical college. We are not giving up hope, we will continue to try to bring these medical colleges and we should not lose hope and say everything is hopeless,” she said.
When asked, the health minister said, “We are now already seeing things happening and I am confident that very shortly we will be able to do it. We are targeting 2024 and we are still in January 2024, so we are progressing, just give us the time we need as committing to a medical college is not like making a dam somewhere, this is like a committed investment and we must qualify….”
On the current status of the Tura government medical college, Lyngdoh said, “…the Tura medical college is well advanced in its infrastructure building. We need to remember that in order for the government of India to grant us permission to set up these institutions, there are few procedures and processes that need to be put in place. So Tura medical college, infrastructure building is well ahead and we have picked up all the lost times during covid also and there was cost escalation, there were all kinds of problems which MDA-I has put behind them.”
She assured that the MDA-2 government will now fast track the medical college in Tura.
Coming to the proposed setting up of Shillong medical college, Lyngdoh said, “We are way ahead and in fact we are going to be floating the Expression of Interest for again certain upgradation of certain facilities. For example, in order to have a medical college, the state already has to have a few important infrastructures.”
“So we are working on all of that and we must not shy away from the challenges that we faced and we must also remember that all said and done there may be a wish but a wish on its own cannot result well, there has to be a will and this will has to be a coordinated effort of citizens along with government and stakeholders that will give their best to ensure tomorrow if we bring a medical college in Shillong, it should be state-of-the-art, it should have all requirements that will help students studying in these institutes become not good doctors but also become satisfied with the facilities that are there around them,” she said.
To another question, the health minister said that one cannot compare Meghalaya with Assam in terms of having many medical colleges.
“Having said that there are other complications that challenge the state of Meghalaya – the availability of land is one of the biggest challenges, availability of expertise, willingness of experts to come to the state of Meghalaya to serve, facility of lodging, facility of other requirement of technical staff that have to come to the state of Meghalaya. These are all big challenges,” she said.
“We have seen it has taken an important health centre like NEIGRIHMS so many years to stabilize. Why is that happening, it is because we have these difficult situations which are peculiar only to the state of Meghalaya,” she added.
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