SHILLONG: Unhappy with the Government’s decision of shifting Jowai Civil Hospital from Panaliar locality to Ialong village, the Panaliar Village Dorbar on Thursday issued a ten-day deadline to the State Government to reverse its decision.
The Panaliar Village Dorbar has asked the State government to retain the different important departments of the Jowai Civil Hospital which was recently shifted to Ialong – a village that is 9 kilometers away from the district headquarter.
Addressing a press conference here in the city, the village headman Rana Lakiang said that the Government should retain departments to attend to emergency cases like OPD, casualty, children and maternity in the former Jowai Civil Hospital to cater to needs of the people belonging to the area.
Earlier, the State government had shifted the 50 year old government-run Jowai Civil Hospital located in Panaliar locality to Ialong village following pressure from a local NGO of the district.
According to Lakiang, people are facing various hardships after the Jowai Hospital was shifted to Ialong village even as he said that the hospital is now located right along the roadside of the National Highway 44, which suffers from chronic traffic jams putting precious lives at stake due to delays that patients face in reaching the hospital.
He also told reporters that the present hospital is not even equipped with a pharmacy, which compels people to go down all the way to Jowai to buy medicines.
The village Dorbar however maintained that they are not against the State government’s decision to shift the hospital to Ialong village if it is for the upgradation and improvement of Jowai Civil Hospital.