Institutional Integrity

The North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) has come a long way since it was first started in 1987. It took a while for the Institution to become fully operational and to find its feet in this state. Today NEIGRIHMS caters to the health needs of patients from all seven states and is growing from strength to strength. It is a Post Graduate Research Institute apart from offering the MBBS course. While there have been controversies in the past as there are wont to be in any institution, in the last 4-5 years, NEIGRIHMS has moved on an even keel. However, the eternal challenge for every institution, particularly an institution offering healthcare facilities is to keep adding more departments and services to cater to an ever- growing number of patients and illnesses. Like every government institution, NEIGRIHMS too has had to face challenges of funding for state of the art diagnostic equipment. Unlike private healthcare facilities the process in government run institutions is cumbersome and involves constant negotiations with the Union Health Ministry. Despite these constraints NEIGRIHMS has done fairly well. This is one of many institutions modelled along the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.
All government institutions work according to a set of rules, regulations and principles. Whether it is in employment or procurement of essentials they have to follow set procedures and are held accountable by those very rules. While there have been complaints from local patients that the nurses recruited by NEIGRIHMS in the past few years are from outside the region and are not conversant with the local language and culture thereby making it difficult for patients and their families to communicate with them, perhaps the Institution has not addressed this lacuna. Cultural sensitivities add to the quality of healthcare. A local pressure group has raised the issue that the reservation policy for Scheduled Tribes is not strictly followed by NEIGRIHMS in their recruitment process for nursing staff. While civil society engagement with a public institution is by no means unconstitutional, the manner in which such engagement happens is a matter of concern. The pressure group allegedly shut the director’s room cum office and asked him to move outside to discuss the matter. In the first place it is wrong for anyone to approach the matter with such belligerence. There is a method for discussing issues with mutual respect and within the ambit of laid down principles.
Of course those leading organizations too must be flexible and react with prudence at such unexpected turn of events and be flexible enough to accommodate views but also to firmly communicate their views when unreasonable demands are made on them. This ability to situationally morph in response to such demands is what makes a good institutional leader. But the same set of guidelines for engaging with institutional heads must also be respected by leaders of pressure groups. Confrontation is not the way forward; discussion and accommodation of diverse views is what keeps institutions on course.