Two New Medical Colleges In North East India Incubate A Thousand Dreams

Tanying Gamoh remembers being fascinated by the sight of a doctor putting a stethoscope to his father’s chest and examining him in the town of Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh’s East Siang district bordering Assam. That was way back in 1973 when Arunachal was still a Union Territory and Tanying was an impressionable nine-year-old. Tanying decided on that day to become a doctor and chased his dream for many years, studying hard to secure a seat in a medical college outside the state.

But since Arunachal’s quota of seats in medical colleges outside the state was very limited, competition to qualify was intense and Tanying could never achieve his dream. However, today, he has got over his disappointment; his youngest son Kiddong has just been admitted to the Tomo Riba Institute Of Health & Medical Sciences (TRIHMS) which started functioning this month. Kiddong is one among the first batch of 31 students from the indigenous tribes of the state at TRIHMS (the state’s first medical college) who got their letters of admission from Chief Minister Pema Khandu at a formal induction ceremony on 1 August.

About 700 kilometres (road distance) south of Naharlagun (where TRIHMS is located), a similar dream bore fruition just a week later on 7 August when Diana Lalruatpuii started classes at the Mizoram Institute of Medical Education & Research (MIMER). Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla inaugurated the institute, the state’s first medical college, on that day. As long as she can remember, Diana had dreamt of becoming a doctor and dedicating her life to curing the sick in the remote areas of the state.

“A movie I saw when I was a kid about a doctor treating the sick in a remote area in Africa really inspired me. There are many areas in our state that are very remote and it takes hours for the ailing to reach the nearest health centre. And we have a severe shortage of doctors also in Mizoram,” she said. But she knew that the competition to qualify for the 10 seats in the state quota in Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) at Imphal in Manipur was intense. “Had MIMER not come up, I would perhaps never realised my dream,” she added.

Both the states have Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda a lot to thank for. “They intervened personally to clear all hurdles and fast track the approvals required for setting up the medical college,” said TRIHMS dean Professor P Jayakumar. “We got all help from the Union Government. The proposal (to set up this medical college) was cleared in record time and we got all assistance that we required, and more, from the Centre,” said Arunachal Chief Minister Pema Khandu. Mizoram Health Minister Lal Thanzara also said that had it not been for Nadda’s personal intervention, MIMER would not have started this year. “He (Nadda) took personal interest and used to contact me directly to check on the progress. He got his ministry and the Medical Council of India (MCI) to fast track the work,” said the Health Minister.

Mizoram and Arunachal were among the three states in the North East that did not have any medical college (the other being Nagaland, but that aberration will also be corrected with Nadda once again taking a personal interest in ensuring that a medical college comes up soon). “My state faces an acute shortage of doctors because very few students from Arunachal could gain admission in medical colleges in the rest of the country.

Doctors from other states will naturally not come to Arunachal, a remote state lacking in many modern amenities, to serve. Thus, people of Arunachal had been suffering a lot. Most people have been going outside the state for medical treatment using their life’s savings. With the medical college having come up now, not only will the severe shortage of doctors be met to a large extent in a few years’ time, people will also get proper medical care here itself” said Chief Minister Khandu.

TRIHMS has started functioning with 50 seats, and within two years, says Jayakumar (the dean), the number of seats will increase to 100 and the beds in the teaching hospital from 300 at present to 500. “We have managed to get a pretty good faculty, most at the senior level from outside the state, and we will increase the size of our faculty,” he said. Khandu’s plan is to make this a super-speciality hospital and, after a few years, move the Union Government to open postgraduate courses as well at TRIHMS.

Mizoram’s MIMER, located about 16 kilometres away from state capital Aizawl at Falkawn, has started with 100 seats. “Right now, three courses in anatomy, physiology and biochemistry are being offered. But we will soon offer many more courses. We are inducting more senior teachers,” said MIMER director Lallukhum Fimate. “This is a good start and we are determined to turn MIMER into a premier medical college and healthcare and medical research institution in the country. We have big dreams,” said MIMER registrar Jane R Ralte.

MIMER has also ignited many dreams. Lalthantluanga is a Group D staff at the institute, which was earlier a referral hospital. “After I started working at the referral hospital many years ago, I used to observe the doctors treating patients and used to hold them in great awe. They are the saviours, giving fresh lease of life to the ailing. And I had secretly wished that a child of mine (I was still a bachelor then) would one day become a doctor. I have three children, but I used to hear how expensive medical education in colleges outside the state is and how very difficult it is for Mizo students to get admission in medical colleges in other states. But now that this medical college has come up, my eldest son Daniel, a Class IX student who is very good in studies, can hope to become a doctor someday,” said Lalthantluanga. Daniel shares his father’s dream.

There are many parents like Lalthantluanga, and many bright kids like Daniel, whose lives have been infused and invigorated with new hope with the establishment of the first medical colleges in the two states. Incidentally, the proposals to set up these institutions were made many years ago and work had been progressing at a snail’s pace. It was only in 2014-2015 that things began to move at a very fast pace. And now, not only have many dreams come true, but thousands more have germinated.