SHILLONG: It is always better to be late than never. So Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on Wednesday finally laid the foundation stone for the state’s first medical college five years after an MoU was signed in this regard.
The Medical College and Hospital will be built on PPP mode with KPC Medical College in Kolkata.
Explaining the delay in starting the project, Sangma said land is a big challenge in the state for which many government projects are delayed and added that the government had adopted a new strategy of giving Category C and D jobs to people who donate their land for government projects.
Sangma also said the government has adopted another strategy to provide treatment to people and the Health Department has been asked to come up with ideas on creating beautiful and idyllic medical infrastructure in the state where patients would not feel homesick and would convalesce in those hospitals for the entire duration of their treatment which sometimes requires months in case of critical diseases.
In addition, the patients would be looked after by friendly medical staff who will be given specialised training, he added.
The chief minister was also not happy at the way treatment is being provided to patients in institutes like AIIMS and even NEIGRIHMS where patients are asked to come after a week for various tests due to increased footfall of patients.
“This is the reason why the State should have enough doctors to look after the patients,” he said.
Maintaining that there is not enough space for young competent students who want to pursue medical studies, Sangma said the initiative of Shillong and Tura Medical Colleges is just a beginning and there would be many more medical colleges in the State.
Sangma further informed that there are 110 posts of specialists in the state which have not been filled up while there are another 150 sanctioned posts in the state which needed to be filled.
Earlier, Urban Affairs Minister, Ronnie V Lyngdoh rued that in the last 40 years people have been complaining about the shortage of doctors in the state but nobody did anything while the chief minister has the courage to set up two medical institutes in the state.
PWD ( Building ) Minister, Ampareen Lyngdoh who was also present on the occasion defended the decision of the government to construct the hospital on a PPP mode saying even Hospitals like Apollo are shining examples of the PPP concept.
Meanwhile, Uttam Chakraborty, Director (Finance) KPC Medical College & Hospital told reporters that the project could not be initiated all these years because they were not given the possession of the land.
He added that the initial project cost was Rs 250 crore and now it will be escalated to around Rs 350-400 crore due to the delay.
