Editor,
The rural health sector has improved to a certain extent due to the efficiency of the medical professionals right from the ASHAs to nurses and doctors on the field and its success could be marked by a slight improvement in an efficient delivery system. However, a news item in one of the English dailies carried a so-called success story of none other than a company called Gramin Healthcare.
To your readers and patrons, let them understand that the healthcare system in the state is still in shambles no matter what the state department bureaucrats or the concerned health minister utter. A case example is about this entity called Gramin Healthcare which is a firm based in Gurgaon with no state office in Meghalaya leave alone a liaison centre. Everything is being handled by its ground staff who have encountered a lot of problems with this firm that it claims to be a successful model.
The company is being channelised by one Sonia Vohra who is supposedly close to the NHM State Director Mr. Ram Kumar and to more Kumars in the State bureaucracy. How can the State healthcare afford to outsource such a critical sector to a company? What if human lives are at stake, will those who signed the agreement take full responsibility?
A visit to Sohrarim will showcase the so-called success but what about other far flung hard to reach areas since it was a project put up from Smart Village Movement another bogus project which tends to “revolutionise” rural development but has failed to make any impact.
The SVM as well is another scam in the making, thus the gradual corporatisation of the health sector is fraught with dangerous trends if people in the government are concerned for their sidekicks and not for the overall interest of the rural masses.
Gramin has coveted the project under the SVM model close to 34 crore as per reliable sources and has not been subject to public scrutiny leave alone without a trading license from the KHADC. I wonder what the KHADC CEM Titos Chyne and his Council have been doing all these past years.
If consultants like these are allowed to usurp the State resources, no wonder why there should not be heavy unemployment in most income generating areas like for example tourism as well. It is time pressure groups and civil society demand that all these outside firms and consultants be done away with and allow our young people to take on the challenge.
Francis Khonglah
Ex-IRS service officer
