The Mobile Hospital is here
Quality medical care is often a luxury for the poor and the marginalized. Due to absence of basic health infrastructure in majority of the villages across Bengal and Bihar, the villagers either neglect their sickness or turn to local quacks for treatment. Moreover, the lack of education in the villages largely contributes to the exploitation that the villagers suffer from at the hands of the quacks. During extreme emergencies, villagers resort to their age-old traditional remedies.
Nutan Jeevan Foundation (NJF) is standing in this gap and reaching out to thousands of people in need of medical care across remote rural pockets of West Bengal and Bihar through its state-of-the-art medical van equipped with General, Dental and Optometric facility for treating patients. The van regularly travels to communities where people fall sick and even die of preventable diseases due to the lack of proper treatment and care and little to no basic awareness on how to respond to a specific sickness.
Anjali Pakhira lives in Hooghly, West Bengal. Once, she had hurt herself that had led to swelling of her leg along with excruciating pain. She couldn’t show herself to a doctor immediately because of financial constraints in her family. But, even after she had shown herself to a doctor some days later, she wasn’t quite satisfied since the medicines weren’t helping to reduce her pain.
Fortunately for Anjali, that same week she had hurt herself, a medical camp had been organized in her village by NJF. Anjali learned about it from one of her neighbors. She showed herself to the doctor once again for a second opinion in hope that she would find respite from the nagging pain that had aggravated over a week.
The doctor at the medical camp checked Anjali’s leg and assured her that the prescribed medicines would certainly help to bring her some relief. With faith, Anjali started her one-month of medication. She did not have to spend any money on the medicines, instead she received them from the camp absolutely free.
Anjali says, “My pain has subsided and the condition of my leg has improved through the medicines I received at the camp.”
Through the Mobile Medical Unit, Nutan Jeevan Foundation is having a significant impact on the lives of people like Anjali who struggle to afford quality medical treatment. It also ensures that people are getting the healthcare at the right time and seeing the doctor early enough before a small health problem turns serious against the backdrop of our failing healthcare system where costs are skyrocketing and the poor do not have the healthcare they need.
