Missing healing touch
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: June 10, 2013 -

A mega surgical operation camp under the initiative of JNIMS, Health and District Administration of Tamenglong was conducted successfully at its newly inaugurated Operation Theatre, District Hospital, Tamenglong

To an uninitiated, it may sound rather surprising to hear or read the successful conduct of surgical operation on 12 supposedly major cases and 10 minor cases being described as a medical milestone.

But that is exactly what it is to the people not just in Tamenglong district, but also to others living in the rest of the hill districts and far flung areas of Manipur.

Marked differences in the existing health care facilities in the urban and rural areas and between the hills and the valley districts of Manipur could not be more starker than anywhere else so much so that even affliction by a minor ailment is a question of life and death for people living in the rural and hill areas where absence of medical practitioners and other basic health care facilities are the hallmark of the existing health care system.

So, the successful conduct of 10 minor and 12 major operations which included four cases of LUCS (lower uterine caesarian section), one of Cholecystectomy (surgical removal of gallbladder), two of Hydrocele (pathological accumulation of serous fluid in body cavity), etc, in the newly inaugurated operation theatre (OT) of 50-bedded Tamenglong District Hospital, was, indeed, a milestone in the medical history of the district, or seeing the light at the end of the dark tunnel finally, in the words of its Medical Officer in-charge Dr Chambo Gonmei.

When we talk about poor health care delivery system in Manipur, Tamenglong district is not an isolated case.

In fact, barring the two tertiary health centres of the Government, namely, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) at Lamphel and the newly upgraded Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) at Porompat, all the remaining seven district hospitals as against the nine districts and other Government health centres suffered from acute shortage of not just infrastructures but also specialist doctors.

As a consequent, the commitment of the State Government to ensure total health care to all its people in the true spirit of health for all remains a distant dream.

With most of the health institutions under the Government of Manipur remaining either defunct or non-performing due to want of medical practitioners and other necessary equipments, people are making beeline at all the private hospitals and clinics, which are mushrooming up in every nook and corner of the State, despite the prospects of spending huge amount of money on medical treatment.

Had the Government been paying the attention to the requirements of its health institutions, why would anybody go to the expensive private hospitals or clinics to blow away their hard earned money?

This is a simple question but the answer shows how seriously the Government has lost focus on prioritizing health care services for its people.