Shillong, Oct 13: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma today acknowledged gaps in Meghalaya’s maternal healthcare system following the death of an infant in West Khasi Hills but said the incident should not overshadow the impact of government programmes aimed at reducing maternal and infant mortality.
While stressing that every life lost was a matter of concern, Sangma said the effectiveness of the state’s healthcare initiatives should be assessed in the context of their overall impact.
Distant healthcare facilities and a non-existent road led family members of an unwell infant to attempt to walk for help but the child died on the way. Domkyrkoh village is under Rambrai block in Rambrai-Jyrngam constituency of West Khasi Hills.
The CM cited the government’s Mother App, which provides free transport for pregnant women to access medical check-ups, saying more than 1 lakh trips had been funded by the state government under the initiative.
He also pointed to more than 200 functional safe motherhood transit homes, where pregnant women, particularly those at high risk, can stay closer to healthcare facilities. According to Sangma, high-risk pregnancies are monitored daily, with women also receiving transport and financial assistance.
These interventions, he said, had contributed to a 57 per cent reduction in maternal mortality over the past 4-5 years, citing central government information. He added that Meghalaya’s maternal healthcare model was being studied by other parts of the country.
However, Sangma acknowledged that the system is not perfect and the government’s objective remains to eliminate preventable deaths rather than simply bring down mortality rates. “My mission is not to reduce but to completely eliminate any life being lost,” he said.
The CM also addressed concerns over road connectivity, saying the state had constructed more roads in the past seven to eight years than in the preceding 25 years combined.
He admitted that several challenges remained and that road infrastructure could not be developed everywhere at once, but maintained that the state was moving in the right direction.
