Union Minister of Ayush Sarbananda Sonowal said that the North East region will get many more big healthcare projects in the near future.
“We have already decided that 39 integrated hospitals will be set up across the North East and 1,000 of health and wellness centres will be created as per the proposal sent by the respective state governments,” Sonowal, an MP from Assam, told reporters after the inaugural function of six new buildings at the North Eastern Institute of Ayurveda and Homoeopathy (NEIAH).
He also said that the entire North East is a hotspot of biodiversity and has an enormous amount of medicinal plants and that is why research centres have been set up here.
State Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh meanwhile said that she has been invited to join the Union Minister at a big conclave in New Delhi on May 18-19.
She said that NEIAH should put in all efforts to adopt further research on locally available practices which are common amongst the tribes of Meghalaya.
“We must ensure that our healers also get equal coverage in this huge government of India plan. I am definitely going to promote this to ensure that our local traditional practices are benefited by this big institution being placed in the heart of Shillong,” she said.
Stating that affordable treatment is another very big concern in an institution like NEIAH, she said, “I just brought it to the attention of the minister, that he may bring us Ayush here but we must make sure that the people can afford it.”
