One of the many lessons which Covid-19 pandemic taught the country has been the immediate necessity of a serious relook of the public healthcare system. That which the myriad of data embedded with as many deluge of figures could not convince the policy makers for decades has been done by a virus and the infirmities of a structure that caters to the medical needs of a population about to touch 140 crore has been exposed like never before. Many post-pandemic studies are coming up and although the pictures vary from state to state, it’s now at a stage when a thorough overall can only save the nation. Arunachal Pradesh, just like the rest of the country has realized that there is no option left but to become ‘Aatma Nirbhar’ in health and it’s a welcome sign that the much-awaited run in its attainment has commenced and a little over two years from now has been chosen as the deadline. The decision has been taken in a high-level meeting on Wednesday chaired by the Chief Minister and it now remains to be seen how sincerely the chronic ailment of missing deadlines is dealt with.

Coming to the national scenario, the fact which needs a further focus is that the pandemic has ‘gifted’ the most difficult of periods for India’s public healthcare mechanism. While the hollowness of the infrastructure, compelled to remain so due to prolonged under-funding has been laid bare, in terms of manpower particularly those necessary in critical areas of medical care, it’s equally pathetic. One can recall how the OPDs suffered severely and were without staff and for non-Covid patients it was nothing less than a nightmare. Reiterating respect on the super-specialty hospitals run by private players for their quality of medical services, it still needs to be underlined that those are beyond the reach of common people. It was an unfortunate development that during the pandemic days even for routine treatment of common ailments which is the responsibility of the public healthcare system, just to save lives people had to make beelines at these private facilities and cough up fees beyond their limits. In Arunachal all the above shortcomings were already existing and their manifestation during the pandemic have been in alarmingly high degrees. A desirable alteration can be made only through doubling of efforts and more vitally, ending the syndrome of overlapping completion deadlines and extending them conveniently. Reportedly, the current assignment of upgrading the facilities at all District Hospitals has no shortage of funds and the principal apprehension hovers around the prospect of not reaching the set-out timelines.

It must not get repeated this time and if necessary a high-level body to oversee the progress should be formed. It’s doable and Arunachal must do it now.