The sight of children's smiling faces has brought back memories of a decade-old effort to plant a medical institution in the hills of Himachal Pradesh. The Chief Minister's Office of Himachal Pradesh posted on Wednesday, 28 October 2026, recalling the founding of Dr. Radhakrishnan Medical College and Hospital, Jol Sappad in 2014 — and crediting the late former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad for making it possible.

The post, in Hindi, reads: 'बच्चों के चेहरों पर खुशी देखकर वर्ष 2014 में डॉ. राधाकृष्णन चिकित्सा महाविद्यालय एवं अस्पताल, जोल सप्पड़ की स्थापना के लिए किए गए प्रयास याद आ रहे हैं' — 'Seeing the happiness on the faces of children brings back memories of the efforts made in 2014 to establish Dr. Radhakrishnan Medical College and Hospital, Jol Sappad.' It goes on to acknowledge the roles of 'then Prime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh ji and then Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad ji.'

A medical college born from inter-governmental resolve

Dr. Radhakrishnan Medical College and Hospital at Jol Sappad, located in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh, was established in 2014 under the UPA-II government's push to expand medical education infrastructure in hilly and remote regions. Central government approvals for new medical colleges in states including Himachal Pradesh were advanced during 2013–2014 under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The Jol Sappad facility stands as one of the incremental additions to the state's medical education network from that era.

The acknowledgement of Manmohan Singh — who served as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014 — and Ghulam Nabi Azad, who held the Health and Family Welfare portfolio during UPA-II, reflects a cross-party recognition of the federal cooperation that underpinned the college's birth. Such institutional memory, surfaced by a sitting government's official account, is notable for its bipartisan tone.

Children's faces as the measure of a hospital's worth

The emotional anchor of the post is deliberate: happiness on a child's face as the ultimate yardstick for a health institution's impact. It signals that a visit or an event at the hospital — likely involving paediatric care or a community outreach programme — prompted the reflection, though the specific occasion accompanying the video post was not detailed in the available text.

For Himachal Pradesh, where mountainous terrain has historically limited healthcare access, medical colleges that double as referral hospitals carry outsized importance. The residents of the state's interior — students, patients, and families who might otherwise travel hundreds of kilometres — are the true stakeholders of infrastructure like Jol Sappad. A decade on, the post implicitly asks: was the effort worth it? The children's faces, the CMO says, answer that.