The Meghalaya government today signed an agreement with the Tamil Nadu government through which the southern state 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 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Meghalaya Principal Secretary (Health) Sampath Kumar and Tamil Nadu Principal Secretary (Health) Dr. P Senthil Kumar in the presence of Meghalaya’s Health Minister James Sangma, who also met with Tamil Nadu’s Minister of Medical and Family Welfare Department, Ma Subramanian to formalise the signing of the MoU.
The MoU will facilitate training of doctors, especially in remote Community Health Centres (CHCs), to overcome the shortage of certified and trained medical professionals for several critical functions, including ultrasonography, obstetrics and anesthesiology.
The intent behind this is to provide better antenatal and postpartum care to expecting women and to women after delivery, especially at the public health facilities in remote locations.
The MoU is targeted at upgrading all CHCs in Meghalaya 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 doctors from Meghalaya, 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 MMR and 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.
Given the fact that high-quality training and skills are readily available in Tamil Nadu (with its reputed medical institutions and certification programs for the medical fraternity), the Tamil Nadu government will support Meghalaya to simultaneously retain a high capacity, motivated workforce, and provide for the health needs of the entire population. The programme will implement a two-pronged strategy of capacity building that is going to be mutually beneficial for the public health systems of both states.
The health officials from Tamil Nadu also shared a detailed presentation to highlight the current health interventions that are underway in their state, and how the state is using innovative mechanisms that are hugely responsible for its good performance in health indicators.
As part of knowledge sharing and understanding Tamil Nadu’s best practices in the medical domain, the Meghalaya health officials also visited Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH), Chennai.
The team also visited the Tamil Nadu Medical Service Corporation (TNMSC), Egmore where a presentation of the working and best practices of TNMSC as well as of the Medical Services Recruitment Board were highlighted.
The MoU was signed in the presence of Dr. Joram Beda, Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare; Rossete 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, Mission Director, NHM Tamil Nadu, Dr. Narayanababu, Director of Medical Education; Dr. Shamshath Begum, Director of Medical and Rural Health Services; Dr. Jerard M. Selvam; Additional Director NHM Tamil Nadu; Dr. Vimala, Dean, Madras Medical College, Chennai among others.
