RIMS on the right path

P Shashikanta Singh *

45th Foundation Day of RIMS (Regional Institute of Medical Science) on 14th September 2016 :: Pix - Shankar Khangembam

After a gap of some years, in the last few months, the public could see some positive changes in the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal which itself is a good sign. We hope that those positive changes should continue in the future also.

Some of them are to provide free medical treatment including diagnostic tests to the ward patients, implementations of 7th pay commission and increase of remunerations of contract employees including daily wage workers; outsourced agency workers etc are worth to mention.

It is an undeniable fact that we could see, the Director Prof. A. Santa loves Manipur and makes up his mind to do something for the benefit of the state.

One major problem faced by the institute and public is lack of equipments or outdated machines used in the departments. The Director announced in his press conference held on 31st December, 2017 that procurements of equipments of the departments are approved by the recent Standing Finance Committee which itself is a good step.

If there are good equipments available in the departments, there will be less chance of referring the patients to the private diagnostic centres for laboratory tests.

At the same time, to strengthen the manpower such as doctors and para-medical staff is also very much needed. In this direction, the endevour of the authority of the institute to convert the existing some posts of doctors to that of Assistant Professors are welcome steps.

Traditionally, teaching hospital see their main function as undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, research and specialist care of the sick and injured. In the setting of a developing country, one must give due prominence to public health, the central pivot around which most health planning in the locality should rotate.

The Director of the institute is the captain and the faculty and staff will be the team players. A captain alone cannot win a match. A good captain is as good as players. If the players are not good, a good captain cannot do anything. If a player plays for his or her individual records, it does not serve for the state or nation.

The players should echo the same view of the captain. The faculty members of the institute will play important roles in the development of teaching hospital.

A good team of faculty members and staff will bring transformational impact on the quality of medical education, research and health care delivery for the region, but it also will bring a wide range of benefits to the institute.

If the institute is in bad shape, only one person cannot be blamed alone. The faculty and staff will also have equal roles. The public will start questioning the people/individual who are responsible for it.

In this juncture, any section of the people or individual should not sabotage the good things happening in the institute in the interest of Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal in particular and the state of Manipur in general. It will be very unfortunate that if some people/individual try to mislead the public in their own benefits.