Four Mobile Vans to Cover Over 700 Villages Having no Health Centers

Bareilly has got a mobile van, known as ‘National Mobile Medical Unit’, and will get three more by the next week for providing primary health services in underserved villages. The mobile vans will cover more than 700 villages located far from primary health centers (PHCs) and community health centers (CHCs). According to officials, Bareilly district has nearly 1,900 villages; of these more than 700 don’t have PHCs or CHCs. Residents of most of these villages are forced to cover more than 30 kilometres to reach the nearest health center or hospital. The mobile vans will conduct camps in these villages to cater the medical needs of residents. Experts said a mobile van will have an MBBS doctor, a pharmacist, a lab technician and a staff nurse. The National Mobile Medical Unit will have facility of conducting x-ray, ultrasound, electrocardiogram (ECG) and pathological tests.

Dr Vineet Shukla, chief medical officer, said, “We have received one mobile van and we have prepared schedule of villages it will be visiting from Saturday. Each mobile van will have a doctor and paramedical staff, who will not only give medicines to the patients, but also conduct general tests. The aim is to take healthcare to the doorsteps of people. We will receive three more mobile vans by the next week.” Abhishek Tyagi, district coordinator, National Mobile Medical Unit, said, “The service will prove beneficial to the patients by saving their time and money which they spend on visiting hospitals. As the vans will have laptops and printers, we would be able to provide hand to hand reports of general tests. However, critical patients will be referred to hospitals for better treatment.” According to National Health Mission, the mobile vans will provide primary healthcare in areas such as mental illness, neonatal and infant health, child and adolescent health, management of common communicable diseases and basic OPD services, dental care and eye/ENT care. – TOI