GUWAHATI: Sarbananda and Himanta were born on Tuesday. One weighs 4 kg and the other 3.8 kg. They may make little difference to Assam’s political life but they have definitely given mirth to their ‘Mishing’ community and the hospital in the world’s largest sweet water island Majuli where they were born.
In less than half an hour after Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s visit to the Garmur Pitambar Dev Sub-divisional Civil Hospital on Tuesday, two women delivered the kids through caesarian section.
Sarma and Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal were in the island town of Garmur in eastern Assam’s Jorhat district in connection with the celebration of second International Yoga Day.
To mark the birth of the babies, their fathers, both farmers, kept their names after the two charismatic BJP leaders, who had steered their party to its maiden victory in Assam in April.
Authorities in the hospital said the kids – Sarbananda Mili and Himanta Pamegam – and their mothers are fine. The locals said the parents were happy to have named the kids after the two politicians. “Both are big babies. As regard to Sarbananda, it was a case of obstructed labour. Himanta, who weighed 4kg at the time of his birth, was to have born on June 16 but his birth was delayed due to his weight,” Dr A M Das of the hospital told Express.
A retired joint director of health services, Das has been working in the hospital on contract under NRHM for the past four years, during which he performed over 1,500 C-section surgeries. Recently, the 10-year-old and 100-bed hospital received high-end surgical equipment and other accessories from the health department. Sarma visited the hospital to take stock of its functioning.
Majuli, the island on the mighty Brahmaputra, had a total area of 1,250 sq km but is now shrunk to 352 sq km following years of erosion. A lot needs to be done to augment the healthcare sector here. The residents cannot go to Jorhat to avail of better medical facilities easily and the hospitals in Majuli lack doctors and facilities.