SHILLONG, April 20: Health Minister, AL Hek on Tuesday said the state government is providing all possible support to NEIGRIHMS, except for funds, and asked the premier healthcare institute to manage with whatever resources it has.
The statement comes against the backdrop of NEIGRIHMS Director Dr P Bhattacharya’s remarks to The Shillong Times that the institute is facing funds crunch as well as manpower shortage and it could become a major issue in treating patients, especially those infected with the COVID-19 virus.
Terming the statement of the NEIGRIHMS authority as wrong, Hek said, “We have to manage and save lives with whatever resources and manpower we have at our disposal.”
He added: “I don’t understand how to share resources with them since they have their own funding and we have our own. We are working in close coordination with NEIGRIHMS but not financially”.
Bhattacharya had stated that health is a state subject and the institute has trained a large number of doctors in handling critical COVID cases, but the state government should be the first to take a call on any COVID situation and not burden NEIGRIHMS since it is also required to take care of critical non-COVID cases.
He had also stated that it is the state government’s responsibility to handle the pandemic and NEIGRIHMS, on its part, will extend all possible assistance to the government.
The NEIGRIHMS Director had said last year that the institute was overburdened with COVID-19 cases and even though there were other hospitals in the state, most patients were referred to it leading to an overload of cases.
