HT Bureau
SHILLONG, Sept 19: The Government of Meghalaya on Monday signed an MoU with the Government of Tamil Nadu through which Tamil Nadu has agreed to support Meghalaya for recruitment and training of medical professionals. This is a first-of-its-kind medical partnership between the two Indian States for collaboration on knowledge sharing, capacity building and improving health service delivery.
The MoU was signed by Sampath Kumar, IAS, principal Health secretary, Government of Meghalaya and Dr. P Senthil Kumar, principal Health secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, in the presence of Meghalaya’s Health minister James P.K Sangma, who also met with Tamil Nadu’s minister of Medical & Family Welfare Department, Ma Subramanian to formalise the signing of MoU.
Addressing the gathering, Meghalaya Health minister lauded the Tamil Nadu Government for the ‘proactive approaches’ undertaken by the South Indian State to improve the health sector.
He added that this will immensely benefit Meghalaya as the excellence and proactive approaches demonstrated by Tamil Nadu in the health sector, under Health minister Ma Subramanian was commendable and worth emulating.
Following the signing of the MoU, Meghalaya’s principal Health secretary, Sampath Kumar, IAS also met with Tamil Nadu’s principal Health secretary, Dr. P Senthil Kumar, IAS in his office. They discussed at length about the possibility of a fellowship programme for medical specialists to be posted to serve in Meghalaya’s rural pockets to improve health service delivery. The steps to take this forward and suggestions were considered at length.
The MoU will facilitate training of doctors, especially in remote Community Health Centers (CHCs), to overcome the shortage of certified and trained medical professionals for several critical functions, including ultrasonography, obstetrics and anesthesiology.
The MoU is targeted at upgrading all CHCs in the State as First Referral Units (FRUs) by overcoming the shortage of medical specialists in the CHCs. And for this, the Government of Tamil Nadu has agreed to give training to State doctors, which has been identified as one of the important steps to strengthen Health systems in Meghalaya.
This MoU is part of Meghalaya’s efforts to improve its health indicators and is one of the several packaged interventions including the Chief Minister’s Safe Motherhood Scheme (CM-SMS) under the rescue mission initiative to reduce Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), aimed at strengthening and ensuring safe deliveries in remote areas. It has also been initiated as part of the State Government’s Service Delivery Redesign (SDR) aimed at creating accessible healthcare in remote pockets.
This MoU has been initiated alongside the already existing ADARSH programme (Design and adoption of Alternate models for Responding to address shortage of medical specialists in Meghalaya) that has been initiated in 2020 for initiation of post graduate diploma courses to address shortage of medical doctors in Meghalaya. This is part of Meghalaya’s greater objective of implementing the MOTHER Health Policy that was passed by the Cabinet in March 2021.
The MoU was signed in the presence of Dr. Joram Beda, secretary, Department of Health & Family Welfare, R.M Kurbah, secretary, Department of Health & Family Welfare, Ramkumar, additional secretary and mission director NHM-Meghalaya, Dr. H.S Lyndem, DHS-MI and Dr. L Challam, DHS-MCH&FW, representing the State of Meghalaya.
Representing the State of Tamil Nadu, the officials present were Shilpa Prabhakar Satish, IAS, mission director, NHM- Tamil Nadu, Dr. Narayanababu, director of Medical Education; Dr. Shamshath Begum, director of Medical & Rural Health Services; Dr. Jerard M. Selvam; additional director- NHM- TN; Dr. Vimala, dean, Madras Medical College, Chennai; Dr. T. S. Selvavinayagam, director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine; R. Alagumeena, State Programme manager, NHM-TN; Dr. J. Muthukumaran, additional director of Medical Education; Thiru V. S. Sivakumaar, Financial advisor cum chief Accounts officer, Office of Director of Medical Education and Dr. M. Indhumathy, deputy director of Medical Education among other officials.
