“The specialists are reluctant to go to rural areas and so there is this constraint before the government to run hospitals,” Sangma told legislators during question hour in the state assembly.
He also cited an example of a doctor who resigned from his post after he was posted in Tura, considered one of the most developed towns in Garo Hills.
He said finding doctors to be posted in rural areas, especially in public and community health centres, has been the biggest constraint in running government hospitals to their potential.
A large number of doctors refuse to go on transfer to remote areas in Meghalaya due to lack of infrastructure and other facilities in those areas.
Deputy Chief Minister Rowell Lyngdoh said that since the government was facing a problem, efforts were on to deploy specialists on a contractual basis.
“We are looking at various ways to overcome this constraint and one of them is appointing specialists on a contractual basis,” Lyngdoh told the assembly.
The previous government had adopted 22 health centres in rural areas on public private partnership (PPP) mode to make them functional.