Our Correspondent
Kohima | October 5
As part of strengthening community’s participation in healthcare delivery, Nagaland’s Medical department today signed a two-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Eleutheros Christian Society (ECS) of Tuensang.
The purpose of the MoU between the Directorate of Heath & Family Welfare and ECS is to collaborate in the management of the Langpong Heath Centre presently managed by ECS. It is to promote and provide universally acceptable, accessible, equitable and quality healthcare services for the population of Changsang range and Tuensang district. According to the MoU, the department is to provide a ‘reasonable quality of healthcare’ by developing an affordable but sustainable healthcare delivery system responsive to people’s needs through collective participation of stakeholders.
The ECS is a private, non-profit and non-governmental organization, engaged in promotion of health, education and livelihood. All “Assured Services” as envisaged in the IPHS for PHC should be available including routine, preventive, curative and emergency care and statutory services in addition to all the national health programmes.
The ECS will be responsible for infrastructure development of the health centers and will also ensure timely and regular submission of reports and returns according to existing guidelines. It will abide by prevailing laws and ensure maintenance of congenial environment for smooth functioning of the health centre.
The department will provide grant-in-aid amounting to Rs. 36.17 lakhs as recurring cost at Rs. 34.61 lakhs and non-recurring cost at Rs. 1.57 in installment every quarterly during the first year.
The annual grant-in-aid may be jointly revised subject to approval of Government of India.
The department will be responsible for skill upgrading of the critical staff of the health centre according to the prevalent integrated training policy; will provide necessary logistic support in terms of data management e.g. reporting formats, registers etc. specialized equipments and instruments relevant to the facility to enable provision of quality services for RCH and other National Diseases Control Programmes, depending on available resources.
Minister for Health & Family Welfare Kuzholuzo Nienu sought supportive and commitment to optimizing the healthcare delivery system in the state. He described the department’s performance in the recent years as “tremendous”. Nienu, however, said that more needs reformation and there still are rooms to improve. On issues of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, Minister Nienu called for strengthening the participation of the people. If the participation is strengthened, he said the public and community health centers will have better performance.
