Shillong, Nov 4: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Wednesday called on the Health Department to identify key health issues and tackle them systematically, one at a time, with sustained effort.
Speaking at the conference “Rethinking Anemia: Towards Comprehensive Anaemia Care,” Sangma said the event follows the first Meghalaya Health Summit held last year, which aimed to bring together government, private hospitals, organisations and individuals to work collectively.
The chief minister urged the department to take up one issue every year, or ideally every six months, and keep working on it until awareness is created.
“These are small things people need to know. Somebody must tell them. That is why we must come together and direct our efforts towards a particular goal in a concerted manner,” he said.
He cited a presentation by Dr Benjamin of Tura Christian Hospital on rising kidney failure, which showed how diet, high sugar, high carbohydrates and lifestyle were driving preventable illness. He also pointed to the 1000-day programme, noting that parents often unknowingly give chips and chocolates to children aged 9 months to 2 years to keep them happy, which is harmful to child health.
The chief minister said the biggest step in the last eight years has been partnering with like-minded organisations.
“It is not about money always. It is about desire to make a change, bringing minds and hearts together, bringing expertise together,” he said.
Meghalaya spends 9% of its budget on health, he noted, but “spending money alone is not enough. It has to be spent in the right way, on the right things, at the right time.”
He said the state has built trust with partners, including IFAD, whose entire Executive Board spent three of its seven days in India in Meghalaya and visited remote villages. “Truth will be in the eyes of the person in the village,” he said.
The chief minister urged participants not to treat the conference as a one-day affair. “Even if you do not come to this conference and you go to a village and create awareness to even one mother, or visit one school and talk to girls there, that is more meaningful,” he said.
Acknowledging that Meghalaya was once near the bottom of national charts on vaccination, maternal mortality and stunting, he said the state sees these as challenges to solve, not failures.
He said governance is wrongly judged by schemes such as kilometres of canal, hospitals opened or football fields built. “The issue is not how many hospitals you open, but how many lives you saved,” he said, adding that the real measure is whether agricultural production increased or children’s lives improved.
Recalling the launch of the maternal mortality programme in 2019, when then Deputy Commissioner of South West Garo Hills, Ramkumar S, was tasked with saving every mother, Sangma said the initial focus on institutional deliveries and awareness had limited impact.
“Later we realised it is not about mother not wanting to go to institution. She just can’t go, because there is no way for her to go. The place is 2-3 hours away,” he said.
Correctly analysing the problem, he added, is “80% of the problem solved.” He compared targeted action to drip irrigation rather than spraying water: “Give water when it matters, you save energy, save cost, and you are effective.”
The chief minister said anaemia remains central to maternal mortality, low birth weight, stunting and child development. The conference will focus on comprehensive care, including screening, treatment, nutrition and follow-up, from adolescent girls to pregnant women.
He said systematic work has brought maternal deaths down from 228 in 2021-22 to 106 in 2025-26. Institutional deliveries have risen from 58.1% (NFHS-5) to 65.6% (NFHS-6), stunting has fallen from 46.5% to 36.8%, and the total fertility rate has dropped from 2.9 to 2.2.
“One conference will not do justice. It requires commitment, consistency,” Sangma said. “It will be exciting and satisfying when you shake hands with the same person after six months, one year, when you have actually made a difference in her life.”
