The Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal, one of the two centrally-run besides the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, Shillong, had been in the news till about a year ago for all the wrong reasons.

It is perhaps the only hospital in the country where rebels have thrown grenades. Its superintendent, while doing the rounds of the wards, carries a loaded pistol for self- protection. The director is accompanied by armed security personnel — a scenario not even seen in Army field hospitals in conflict zones.

The grenade attacks date back to the days when the institute catered to students not only from Manipur but also from Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. At that point of time it was under the North Eastern Council and became a happy hunting ground for rebel groups to fill up their coffers.

The authorities started playing one group against the other using “contract works” as the bait, which explains the frequent grenade attacks. Also the fact that it is a centrally run organisation and its workers enjoy central pay-scale — that was also the time when posts began to be literally auctioned. For instance, for a nurse’s post the demand was anything between Rs 15-25 lakh and there were more than 200 posts.

Likewise, the post of the director began to be auctioned off not in Imphal but in the corridors of the Union health ministry. Three years ago, I met a gun-carrying medical superintendent at the airport. He said he was on his way to Kolkata to meet a broker who had taken Rs 2 crore from him to grease the palms of the powers that be in Delhi for the post of the director.

Then The Statesman broke the news as to how the man had eventually got the job after coughing up Rs 4 crore to Ghulam Nabi Azad and his associates in power then in Delhi. Then the cookies started crumbling when the CBI stepped in, Dr S Sekharjit Singh, then director, was suspended over the infamous purchase of dental chairs at an inflated rate for the newly-opened dental college.

Then the Institute saw Dr Chongtham Arun, the senior-most professor filling in the gap. This was followed by one Dr S Rita Devi who quit the job within three months unable to withstand the pressure from various quarters. Then Dr Arun resumed charge again. His tenure was just for six months when the authorities appointed RK Dinesh Singh, an IAS officer, amid protests from the staff as he was viewed as an outsider. The RIMS management now centered in Delhi began some serious rethinking about the next person to be appointed.

The committee soon zeroed in on Dr Ahanthem Santa Singh. This 55- year-old Manipuri doctor is one of the top gynaecologists of the country with a track record of having helped establish four medical colleges, two in Nepal and two in India, including the Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences, Gangtok and the NEIGRIHMS. Besides he is still closely associated with his alma mater, the Jawaharlal Institute of Post-graduate Medical Education and Research in Pudduchery.

It was from there he had graduated in 1985 obtaining his MBBS, which was followed by DGO in 1989, MD in 1990 and DNB in 1991.He is also currently a member of the Board of Governors, Standing Selection Committee and Standing Hospital Affairs Committee of JIPMER. He had also served as medical superintendent, dean, head of department, director and principal of the NEIGRIHMS when he was plucked out to begin the restoration of RIMS. And he assumed charge on the 16 August 2017.

When he took over RIMS, it was in the doldrums as the nearly 2,000-strong staff had not been paid their salaries for over two months, perhaps the only centrally-administered institute in the entire country to do so. He watched very carefully for one month and on 14 September 2017, after the staff had received their salaries, made a stunning announcement that “the RIMS staff would soon get to enjoy the salaries as per the 7th Pay Commission Report.”

An elated staff member told The Statesman that this was a dream come true for them after a spell of no pay. It has since been implemented. The staff soon began to admire his confidence and ability to convince the powers at Delhi. Soon staff on contract basis had their salaries considerably enhanced and daily workers got their wages doubled having been brought under the Minimum Wages Act and stipends for MPhil students enhanced from Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000 per month. Simultaneously charges for MRIs and CAT Scans were dropped to Rs 2,500 and Rs 200 per examination simultaneously ensuring that the machines, costing crores, were kept functioning again.

Speaking to The Statesman, Dr Santa said that he had agreed to take up the assignment with a vision to upgrade the RIMS on par with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. The RIMS Hospital, which came into existence as a 500-bed general hospital of the state in 1968, now has around 1,100 in-patients.

As his first step towards achieving his vision, he has already converted four super specialty branches into full fledged departments and these are of cardiology, neurology, nephrology and gastro-intestinal surgery. But he laments at the lack of adequate support from the staff to back up the super specialists in his team and clinical materials and it is not the lack of money that is proving to be the hindrance.

His plan is not only of conducting kidney transplants at RIMS but also heart transplants. He is also well aware of the market viability of the dream of his new RIMS considering that the Imphal international Airport is a mere 10 km away. Patients from Myanmar and Bangladesh can fly in to get top class treatment at dirt cheap rates, boosting medical tourism. Unlike other directors he also assumes the role of the medical superintendent of the hospital, going round the wards, including the casualty department or the trauma centre reassuring patients while cross-checking if they are availing all the facilities and whether any of his subordinate staff is involved in any underplays in connivance with the local private clinics that have mushroomed on the RIMS campus.

In the meantime, he has been able to boost the annual budget, which had earlier hovered around Rs 190 crore, to more than Rs 300 crore. This hospital that had treated over 500,000 patients in its various departments, 129,000 in the casualty department, admitted 41,000 as in-ward and had delivered 10,300 babies during 2016-17 with the lowest MMR in India was suffering from a lack of vision at the leadership level. Apart from the 27 different departments and four specialised units, the RIMS also runs full-fledged dental and nursing colleges. And it has till now produced 3,249 medical professionals besides 1,583 specialists. It has an intake capacity of 100 students at the undergraduate level and 147 at the post-graduate level.

But what is worrying Dr Santa is the non-cooperation of the director aspirants from among the senior faculty members plus the fact that his tenure has been extended by a mere six months. It is sincerely hoped that the powers that be in New Delhi would think twice before showing the door to the man who had never worked with any government institution in Manipur before but returned to serve the people and the region.

(The writer is The Statesman’s Special Representative based in Imphal.)