A referral dream

It was a welcome news when Nagaland minister of health and family welfare Paiwang Konyak announced on Saturday the government decision to convert Dimapur District Hospital as the state’s first Referral Hospital. The state’s first referral hospital project died prematurely due to financial mismanagement and cost overrun. The Referral Hospital project was to have become the first in Nagaland which and to subsequently turned into a 500-bedded medical college. It was unveiled sometime in 1988 by then chief minister Vamuzo at an initial cost around Rs.30 crore. However the project was grounded due to inordinate delays and after the budget quadrupled to nearly Rs.200 crore. The erstwhile Referral hospital at has been taken over by a private party through a tri-partite agreement in 2006 and now renamed as Christian Institute for Health & Science Research(CIHSR). Though CISHR has over 200 beds, it was not considered under the scheme since it is a private hospital. The announcement to convert Dimapur District Hospital into the state’s first referral hospital is a small consolation since the Hospital qualified being converted into a district medical college but was ignored and instead Naga Hospital Kohima and Mon District Hospital were selected as district medical colleges. DHD has around 200 beds and could have been converted as a medical college under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the central government, launched by the UPA-II in January 2014. Under the Central Scheme, district medical colleges are to be established at an estimated cost of Rs.189 crore after upgradation of district hospitals having 200 beds for which funds would be shared between the central government and the state governments in the ratio of 90:10 for North Eastern and Special Category states. Dimapur has several factors that are complimentary for converting DHD as a medical colleges such as- its logistics and proximity to the railway station, airport and bus and taxi terminus for visiting professors to travel from medical colleges at Jorhat or Guwahati. Dimapur also has the advantage over other districts with regard to availability of cadavers, existence of seven major hospitals in Dimapur totalling around 400 beds besides the DHD and a huge number of skilled and semi-skilled technicians for laboratory, equipments and also for service and repairs etc. The proposed Referral Hospital at Dimapur will require highly specialized equipment, expertise and highly trained specialists. The main function is to provide a referral service for secondary care centers (general hospitals) in all main subspecialties. Converting the District Hospital Dimapur to Referral Hospital is a welcome move since it has the highest number of both outpatient and inpatient record in the state and also catering to patients from Dimapur, Peren, other districts of the state including nearby Karbi Anglong etc. It is easier to construct buildings or purchase equipments for such a project but there is also need to understand that the DHD campus has been under encroachment for decades and some are reportedly medical staff themselves. This has to be cleared and also there should be no political interference in its working to ensure that the required specialists and staff are given a free hand so as to enable them to professionally run the proposed referral hospital and realise the vision birthed in 1988.