Deadline served to govt

Shillong, October 18: The Panaliar Village Dorbar on Friday served a ten days ‘deadline’ to the state government to retain the important departments of the Jowai Civil Hospital in the interest of the public of the area. The Jowai Civil hospital was recently shifted to Ialong – a village that is 9 kilometers away from the district headquarter Jowai.

The fifty years old government Jowai Civil Hospital located in Panaliar locality was shifted to Ialong village without any notification to appease one particular ngos of the district who had been demanding the shifting.

After the shifting only three departments -Tuberculosis clinic, blood bank and Morgue- are left in the old Civil Hospital which the village dorbar says is of no use to the public.

The Panaliar Village Dorbar headman Rana Lakiang told reporters at a news conference on Friday that the dorbar demands that the government should retain some of the important departments to attend to emergency cases. He said department  like OPD, casualty, children and maternity should be shifted back to the former Jowai Civil Hospital to cater to need of the people of the area and the surrounding villages .

The village dorbar has served a ten days deadline to the government failing which it has threatened to close down the three departments located in the old Civil hospital.

Lakiang told reporters people are facing various difficulties after the Jowai Hospital was shifted to Ialong village. He said one of the major problems of the new location of the hospital is that it is located right along the National Highway 44 that suffers from chronic traffic jams putting precious lives at stake. He informed that the present hospital does not even have a pharmacy and people have to come down all the way to Jowai to buy medicines.

Lakiang also said that the shifting of the Civil hospital to the present location has created problem to the people, especially those belonging to poor families as they cannot go to a private hospital to get treatment.

Making it clear that the village dorbar is not against the state government decision to shift the hospital to Ialong village provided it is being done to upgradate the Jowai Civil Hospital. But Lakiang said that till today the state government has failed to enlighten the people for what reason the hospital was shifted.

In September, the village dorbar had submitted a memorandum to the state health minister on the same issue but it did not get any response from the government.- By Our Reporter