Shillong, April 28: IIM Shillong has been asked to address the problems faced by medical practitioners here in buying medical equipment and their maintenance.
Addressing the concluding day function of the five-day management development programme on Finance for Medical Professionals at Mayurbhanj Palace complex of IIM Shillong yesterday, Daljit Singh Sethi, secretary, Indian Medical Association, Meghalaya chapter, said the medical practitioners in Shillong were facing “peculiar issues” on buying of medical equipment.
He said the IIM should also address such issues in its forthcoming programmes.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Sethi said banking institutions sometimes act as a hindrance to the attempts made by indigenous doctors to expand their medical services.
“While availing of loans to purchase medical equipment, most of the banks do not accept land documents as security. This is a major concern,” Sethi said.
He said because of a limited exposure to companies, most of the doctors here do not get the best products. “However, even if they get these equipment, we do not have service centres. Most of the service centres are outside the Northeast,” the Meghalaya unit secretary of the IMA said.
On the IIM playing a key role in medical service, he said: “The institute can help doctors analyse equipment and educate them before purchasing materials to ensure that proper after-sales servicing is available.”
Harping on the need for the state government to introduce incentives for private doctors who want to set up hospitals in rural areas, Sethi said, “For those who set up industries, the government offers all kinds of subsidies and incentives. However, doctors are not given anything.” He said to improve the medical service in the rural areas, the government could provide free land, electricity and water, besides declaring those areas as tax-free. “As our chief minister (Mukul Sangma) is a doctor, I think he understands the situation better,” Sethi said.
“Even after 80 per cent of the healthcare service in the country is being provided by private doctors, the required support and encouragement is absent here,” he said.
Stating that the lack of medical manpower in the Northeast is untrue, Sethi asked, “Where will you employ doctors and nurses when you do not have enough centres?”
He said the medical professionals from the Northeast were serving not only in different parts of the country, but also abroad.
“When you have proper avenues for employment, you will not face any lack of manpower as doctors and nurses will be employed in those centres,” he added.
Sethi said that it was very discouraging to note that doctors were being made targets of extortion in some parts of the region.
Several medical practitioners attended the five-day programme, which was specially designed to provide assorted inputs in the area of accounting, costing, and financial management.