Shillong, August 24: The Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Shri James. P. K Sangma today inaugurated the office of the Meghalaya Health Systems Strengthening Project (MHSSP) at DHS complex, Laitumkhrah, Shillong.
He stated that this project can prove to be a major game changer in bringing about improvements in not only the overall health indicators of the people of Meghalaya, but more so, in improving the sustainable development goal indicators of the State. The Health minister graced the occasion as the Chief Guest.
Addressing the gathering, the Health Minister stated that the MHSSP is following a very organic approach towards improving the health indicators of people in the State. He added that a major problem that the government departments face at this hour is the fact that they are working in silos.
Through the MHSSP, a convergence approach is being adopted in order to address the critical gaps through effective gap analysis in the sector. He further went on to congratulate the entire MHSSP team and said that the possibility of scaling up projects such as MHSSP can be seen to also strengthen the other departments of the State Government.
It may be mentioned that the Meghalaya Health Systems Strengthening Project (MHSSP) was signed on 28th October 2021 between the Government of Meghalaya and World Bank – International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and was declared effective from 26th Nov 2021 for a period of Five years.
The MHSSP aims to strengthen the overall public health system and improve access to quality health care for the people of Meghalaya. Its vision is to improve primary and secondary health output parameters of the state by creating an organic integration between data, health infrastructure, capacity building and community strength. The project development objective (PDO) is to improve management capacity, quality and utilization of health services in Meghalaya.
The Health Minister also took stock of the progress and updates on MHSSP in a meeting with important state level officers and doctors including: Shri Ramkumar S IAS, Project Director- MHSSP, Dr. Joram Beda, IAS Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Dr Twinkle Marak, MCS, Under Secretary, Department of Health & Family Welfare, Dr H.C Lyndem, Director of Health Services.
The (DHS-MI), Dr. L Challam, Director Health Services, Maternal & Child Health & Family Welfare (DHS-MCH&FW) and Additional Project Director-MHSSP, Dr S.S Nongbri, Director of Health Services-Research (DHS-R) and Shri F Basan, Additional Project Director – MHSSP in the presence of other senior officers of the health department and Project Management Unit- MHSSP.
The Health Minister, in his meeting with senior officials from the Department of Health and Family Welfare as well as the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) gave important suggestions and recommendations with respect to not only MHSSP, but also for the improvement of major health indicators in the State through a collaborative, inter departmental approach as well as through involvement of various stakeholders.
A status update on the progress made by the MHSSP was presented to the Health Minister by Project Director-MHSSP, Shri. Ramkumar S, IAS wherein the activities, components, achievements as well as the roadmap of MHSSP were highlighted.
It was informed that the MHSSP already has a live website which includes all details about the project in an open access public domain. The same can be accessed at https://meghssp.org/ . The project has a live dashboard too, which gives an overview of priority health indicators in the State.
It may be mentioned that MHSSP has also initiated a completely paperless administrative system for its official proceedings. The Project is exclusively using an online Digital Document Filing System (DDFS) for the purpose, thereby gradually doing away with the use of papers for official use.
The project will also initiate construction of a drone hub in Jengjal, West Garo Hills District, among other places, to fill the gaps in the existing public health logistics system and provide efficient service to various hard-to-reach health facilities. It was also stated that a system of electronic health records will be initiated soon as part of the project implementation.
