SHILLONG, Aug 24: Health Minister James PK Sangma on Wednesday inaugurated the office of the Meghalaya Health Systems Strengthening Project (MHSSP), billing it as a game changer for the state’s health sector and will also help in improving the sustainable development goal indicators of the state.
“The MHSSP is following an organic approach towards improving the health indicators of people in the state. A major problem that the government departments face at this hour is the fact that they are working in silos,” Sangma said.
Through the MHSSP, a convergence approach is being adopted to address the critical gaps through effective gap analysis in the sector, he said.
The MHSSP was signed on October 28, 2021, between the Meghalaya government and World Bank – International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and was declared effective for a period of five years from November 26, 2021.
It aims to strengthen the overall public health system and improve access to quality healthcare for the people of Meghalaya.
“Its vision is to improve primary and secondary health output parameters of the state by creating an organic integration between data, health infrastructure, capacity building and community strength. The project development objective is to improve management capacity, quality and utilisation of health services in Meghalaya,” Sangma said.
The MHSSP has a live website (https://meghssp.org/) which includes all details about the project in an open access public domain.
The MHSSP has also initiated a completely paperless administrative system for its official proceedings.
The project is exclusively using an online digital document filing system for the purpose, thereby gradually doing away with the use of papers for official use, Sangma said.
The project will also initiate the construction of a drone hub in Jengjal near Tura, among other places, to fill the gaps in the existing public health logistics system and provide efficient service to various hard-to-reach health facilities.
It was also stated that a system of electronic health records will be initiated soon as part of the project implementation.
