Nagaland Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Kuzholuzo Nienu while inaugurating the foundation laying programme of the Khuza Primary Health Centre (PHC) at Khuza EAC Hq in Phek district recently claimed that Nagaland has one of the best health care infrastructures in the country. The Minister made this claim after referring to “an investigation team from Uttar Pradesh” appreciating the functioning and the condition of the primary health centres in Nagaland during their visit. If indeed we have one of the best health infrastructures in India, all of us should be proud of such an achievement. The only problem with such a claim is whether this can be independently verified on the ground. Merely because some officials from outside, they have a positive impression on one or two places shown by Department officials, we should not glorify ourselves when the reality could be different. Perhaps this column may be wrong in our assessment but obviously the claim of the Minister needs to be objectively verified. Since the Minister mentioned UP, just to remind ourselves that both the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) are investigating a huge scam in the National Rural Health Mission Scam (NRHM) in that State. In fact the former Uttar Pradesh Family Welfare Minister Babu Singh Kushwaha and several others including top IAS officers are facing probe in connection with this scam. And with the Naga Mothers Association (NMA) unearthing financial irregularities in the NRHM meant for Nagaland, the similarities between UP and Nagaland is quite a coincidence in many ways.
Merely adding new health centres across the length and breadth of Nagaland does not mean anything if we are not able to run them properly. Perhaps the Minister was referring to “one of the best health care infrastructures” in terms of the beautiful costly structures build across the State. Having the best health care infrastructure alone will not be helpful. To save lives, care for the ill and needy and reach out to all, those who run the ‘health care infrastructure’ will have to deliver prompt and quality service on a day to day basis and not just when some inspection team or VIPs come to visit and check on performance. Infrastructure minus service equals a cheque that has bounced. As rightly mentioned by the Minister one will have to ensure “a good healthcare delivery system”. And perhaps the quality of our health care infrastructure and service can be measured by whether people have the confidence to seek medical care in such places. All of us are aware that because of poor government health care facilities and service in rural areas, people have more faith and confidence in seeking treatment elsewhere. If indeed we want to be the best then we must do our best and not just in building infrastructure alone but more importantly in the area of health care, manpower availability and delivery of service. As mentioned before, health is not only about building hospitals or infrastructures and the reality is that the rural health care in the State is in need of vast improvement.
