SHILLONG, JAN 25: The State Government hastaken up a novel initiative to address the perpetual shortage of specialist doctors inMeghalaya by launching “Design and Adoption of Alternate models for Responding to address Shortage of medical specialists inMeghalaya” (ADARSH). The provisional signing of the MoU and a workshop was conducted between State Government andPublic Health Foundation of India and Indian Institutes of Public Health on December 7, last year in the presence of P W Ingty,Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Meghalaya, Pravin Bakshi (IAS), Health Secretary cum Mission Director, NHM –Meghalaya, Directors of Health Services (MI, MCH and Research), Meghalaya, Prof Sanjay Zodpey, Vice President(Academics), PHFI-New Delhi and Prof Sandra Albert, Director IIPH-Shillong.
On Friday, final signing and handing of the formal MoU between State Government and Public Health Foundation ofIndia took place in the presence of Minister of Health & Family Welfare, AL Hek and PW Ingty, Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Meghalaya.
Critical and specialist health workforce is important to achieve health and wider development objectives over the nextfew decades. Medical specialists are scarce in Meghalaya and the numbers are lower than required in the public sector, at theCommunity Health Centre (CHC) level and above. Even district hospitals in our state have an acute shortage of medical specialists.
The ADARSH project is an attempt to design and scale-up alternate models for responding to the critical shortage ofmedical specialists in the state to train doctors in the public sector. The College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPS) model isan alternative model that will be adopted in Meghalaya. PHFI/IIPH will work closely with the Government of India, StateGovernments, the CPS and other stakeholders to facilitate specialist doctors strengthening in the public sector. Large DistrictHospitals (DHs) will be leveraged for specialist doctors training. This is in keeping with the National Health Policy 2017 and aMoH&FW Steering Committee for advocating scaling-up of specialist training options like that of the CPS in district hospital.
The project will increase the number of specialists in the state through adoption of alternate model for responding to thecritical shortage of medical specialists at FRUs, CHCs, Sub District Hospitals and District Hospitals for providing patientcentred secondary health care services. The participating District Hospitals will witness a strengthening of their capital infrastructure as well as the staffing of specialists. It is hoped that the presence of Post-Graduate trainees around the year in ahospital will have a domino effect that may lead to better services and higher utilization.
It is strongly felt that the State Government will directly benefit from the availability of a larger specialist pool. Thepopulation, particularly women and children, served by the District Hospitals will have 24×7 access to medical specialists.After completion of their training, the states will judiciously choose where these specialists will be posted to address concernswithin the state. It is hereby informed that the two year courses that will eventually be offered will include Diploma in ChildHealth, Maternal Health, Anaesthesiology and Surgery.
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