The West Bengal government has taken a unique initiative to provide basic healthcare to remote villages and hilly areas by launching 110 mobile medical units, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday. The trucks, which were inaugurated at Swasthya Bhavan, are part of a 210-unit fleet funded largely through MPs’ development allocations and MPLAD funds.
Banerjee said the 210 mobile clinics were set up at a cost of around Rs 84 crore from the Rajya Sabha MPs Development Fund. Additional MPLAD allocations of Rs 60 lakh and Rs 20 lakh have pushed the total expenditure to over Rs 80 lakh. MPLADS (Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme) funds are an annual grant of Rs 5 crore to each Member of Parliament (MP) for recommending development projects in their constituency.
“This is an initiative similar to the Duari Swasthya initiative. It is a mobile clinic with a doctor, a nurse, a technician and medicines. The locals will be informed in advance when the unit reaches an area. We want this to spread everywhere,” she said.
Each truck will provide free testing for about 35 conditions and parameters, including hemoglobin, pregnancy screening, malaria, ECG and blood sugar checks. A laboratory technician, ECG operator and data operator will form part of each team. Banerjee said the state has allocated nearly Rs 2.5 lakh crore per month to run the services, which is about Rs 30 lakh annually.
Officials described the units as targeting people who have difficulty accessing fixed health facilities. The trucks will carry first aid supplies and essential medications and will provide scheduled visits that will be announced in advance so residents can plan. When needed, patients will be referred to area hospitals for follow-up care.
This launch was made as part of a wider expansion of public health provision in the state. “The health budget has increased six-fold since the Left rule,” Banerjee said, noting that health spending in the state has risen from about Rs 3,500 crore then to about Rs 21,500 crore now. She also highlighted the Swasthya Sathi scheme, under which 2.45 crore families, covering about 8.72 crore people, will get up to Rs 5 lakh in health cover.
Ministry of Health sources said that training and data systems are being put in place to record tests and link patients to current schemes. They added that the trucks will be redeployed according to local demand and needs.
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Many births had earlier taken place at home and official records were often improvised, Banerjee said. She said that births in institutions today represent 99.4% of births.
“Earlier, many people gave birth at home and the date on the certificate became the ‘official’ birthday,” she said, adding that she once asked former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee if he was born on December 25. He replied: “No, Mamata Di, that is not my real birthday.” Whatever date my parents officially recorded was my birthday.” “I told him my phone was the same, and asked him not to call me on my ‘official’ birthday,” Banerjee recalls.
She described the mobile units as particularly useful for pregnant women, children and the elderly who cannot easily reach primary health care centres.
(Tags for translation)Mamata Banerjee
