By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, May 25: The North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) is witnessing a rush of patients from across the region daily.
Established in 1987, the premier institute at Mawdiangdiang has been a boon for people who seek quality treatment but cannot afford it. A visit to the institute on Friday indicated that a majority of the patients come from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram, and Nagaland
A man who came from Assam for the treatment of his daughter said NEIGRIHMS is neat and clean and the doctors are professional and quick.
“Hospitals in Guwahati are not as clean and the treatment is expensive there,” he said, adding that the waiting time of up to one hour for registration and at the pharmacist is the only challenge they faced at the super-speciality institute.
A five-minute wait at the room of Bhaskar Borgohain, Professor and Head of the Orthopaedics Department, revealed patients come from as far as Arunachal Pradesh’s Itanagar and Assam’s Sivasagar for treatment.
“An average of 1,000 patients, mostly from Assam, come to the institute for treatment every day,” D. Daniala, the institute’s Medical Superintendent said.
“People find the results here very satisfying and the word is spread that good quality treatment is provided here,” he said when asked why more people from the other northeastern states than Meghalaya come to NEIGRIHMS.
However, top bureaucrats from Meghalaya and some top politicians from elsewhere in the Northeast come to the institute for treatment.
Dr Daniala said NEIGRIHMS wields the advantage of being equipped with highly sophisticated machines, some of which are not available in other parts of the country. The institute has a 3T Tesla, an MRI scanner that shows videos to the patients to ease them during scanning.
Dr Borgohain denied allegations that the institute lets interns experiment with the patients.
“The interns assist the senior resident doctors to some extent but the senior doctors take the final decisions,” he said.
“They help us when we examine patients. I may sometimes miss some important aspects while examining a patient, which an intern may not and hence we seek their assistance. But the treatment of the patients is done by the senior doctors,” he said.
The institute, it was learned, has overcome the impact of the recent exodus of doctors to AIIMS Guwahati after filling up the void.
Dr Daniala said many NEIGRIHMS doctors resent the inability to get land in Meghalaya even after serving for years, which is the primary reason they do not want to serve here for long.
The wards of the institute were found to be equipped with modern equipment. The institute’s hygienic kitchen prepares meals for hundreds of patients daily while the laundry operates overtime.