Shillong, Aug 24: Union Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar on Thursday announced the Centre’s decision to increase 50 more MBBS seats at the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS).

She also assured that the Centre will provide all necessary support to Meghalaya for setting up its own medical colleges.

After visiting and reviewing the different activities of the super speciality institute, Dr Bharati said, “We are going to increase 50 more seats from next year so it will then be 100 seats in NEIGRIHMS.”

She informed that Centre is providing NEIGRIHMS with a budget of around Rs 600 crore till date to develop the medical and nursing college.

According to her, the Centre has been during the last 9 to 10 years focused on strengthening the tertiary care including primary and secondary as the Prime Minister’s vision is to strengthen the healthcare system through central government schemes.

Dr Bharati said that the Centre is providing different budget to strengthen the NEIGRIHMS. “Last year, the budget was Rs 480 crore and this year, the budget is Rs 528 crore. So we are constantly increasing (the budget),” she added.

She also lauded the achievements of the NEIGRIHMS which include the radio-therapy treatment.

Asked if the Centre will support Meghalaya to have its own medical colleges, the Minister of State said, “Government is definitely going to support the medical college and we are strengthening NEIGRIHMS also. (We will also) provide support for the next medical college.”

Also reviewing the implementation of the National Health Mission (NHM) in Meghalaya, Dr Bharati informed that the Central government has sanctioned approximately Rs 600 crore budget this year on a 90:10 pattern of funding.

“Apart from that the emergency covid relief package (ECRP-1) and ECRP-2, the Centre has provided a budget of Rs 25 lakh to Meghalaya (for ECRP-1) and Rs 117 crore (for ECRP-2),” she said.

For strengthening the sub-centres and health and wellness centres, she said that the Central government is allocating Rs 150 crore for Meghalaya under the 15th Finance budget. “Again, we must prepare for our next pandemic as envisioned by the PM, we must focus on the preparedness and prevention and be ready for the next pandemic,” she said.

Further, the Minister of State said that about Rs 64,000 budget has been sanctioned under the PM Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission for the entire country and in Meghalaya the budget is allocated at Rs 150 crore for the next four years.

“Right now, in Meghalaya, nearly 470 health and wellness centres are functional. Health wellness centre is a centre where we are focusing more on screening as well as treatment also. We are doing primary screening of hypertension and to detect diabetic and to focus on cancer and we are doing cancer screening like oral cancer, cervical cancer,” she said.

She also informed that over 5 lakh Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) IDs have been issued to patients. She also congratulated the Meghalaya government for its initiative with regards to the teleconsultation and said, “Nearly one lakh teleconsultation have been done. This is a great achievement.”

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