Meghalaya: Govt committed to set up medical colleges despite challenges, says health minister Ampareen Lyngdoh

Meghalaya Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh today said that the government is committed to achieve the aim of setting up at least 3 medical colleges in the state. Though the minister said that setting up such institutes is coupled with lot of challenges, yet she believes that achievements will be made by overcoming it.
Lyngdoh briefing mediapersons said, “In order to have a medical college there are so many prerequisites that needs to be put in place. No where is the building, where is the lecture hall? Do you have the number of doctors, do you have the number of senior doctors who will be willing to become professors in this line? Do you have a policy for HR to enable our doctors to opt or are we willing to extend the retirement services of doctors to 65 years like in every other state because these are the doctors that will be manning the various depts in this medical institution?
Number 2 do we have the infrastructure, do we have the hostels ready? Are the hostels available? Number 3 do we have experts in administration to help govt run these institutions, because you are looking at government run medical college. So govt run medical college will be far more challenging. That is why the govt of Meghalaya is speculating or contemplating on PPP models with USTM, PPP models with other institutes that have done well and excelled as medical institutions or medical colleges. So many things have to be taken into consideration.”
However, the Meghalaya Health Minister assured that the government will do every bit to augment the health infrastructure and provide quality medical service to the people. The government targets to make a breakthrough in the year 2025.
Ampareen Lyngdoh said, “Let me assure that we now already are seeing things happening and I am confident that very shortly we will be able to do it. We have said that we are targetting 2025. Now we are in the January of 2024, we are progressing, give us the credibility, give us the time we need. Committing to set up a medical college is not just like making a dam or dyke somewhere, beautifying a place somewhere. This is like a committed investment, we must qualify, will the experts come, are we willing to look at pay structures that will be attractive for these experts to come. There are few areas where we do not have the experts, even in the government facilities like DHS.
Nevertheless, we are confident we are going to try and nail it and there is absolutely no harm in having a wishlist of not less than 3 govt medical colleges in the state or medical colleges that are going to be run in a PPP mode.”