Flash Back July 1995
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Flash Back July 1995
Health infrastructure in Meghalaya a shambles
The right to live in a clean and free environment with access to health care facilities, including life saving drugs is a fundamental right for every citizen in India. Unfortunately for Meghalaya, health appears to be a neglected sector almost as if human life can be dispensed with so easily. The total area of the state is 22,429 sq. kms with a population of approximately 18 lakhs, which is not really large or unmanageable if the correct thrust had been laid since the inception of the state. But twenty three years of statehood finds the health infrastructure in the state in a shambles.
Recently with the unearthing of the Massar Committee Report which had gone into certain irregularities in the Health Department as far back as 1986, so many sordid details have come out into the open, that the citizens feel the need to punish the guilty and sweep this department clean. Considering that health is more important than wealth and symbolises life itself, one expects the State Health Department to provide the basic facilities to the common man, especially in far – flung and difficult terrains of the state so that they can effectively combat diseases such as dysentery, diarrhea and the dreaded malaria which has come back with a vengeance. But as usual, hospitals and Community Health Centres are all constructed on paper only.
