Hundreds of villages scattered along the Brahmaputra and its islands have long been deprived of basic health care facilities due to inaccessibility. The dangers of frequent floods make them even more distant.
GUWAHATI: Hundreds of villages scattered along the Brahmaputra and its islands have not been getting basic healthcare facilities for a long time due to inaccessibility. The dangers of frequent floods make them even more distant.
Lakhimpur and Vishwanath districts of North Eastern Front of Assam do not even have proper roads for transportation in case of emergency. The pandemic was a time of great testing for the region by once again pointing out the fact that connectivity to education, health and essential services is the need of the hour.
When a fellow villager in Saru Tamuli village of Bortamuli panchayat of Gohpur revenue mandal of Biswanath informed Ruini Milli that a boat-clinic would soon come up on their river-island, he could not believe it. But when the temporary medical facility actually arrived on June 24 with a team of doctors and paramedics, she was left speechless.
“I have never seen such a beautiful boat-hospital. It crossed the Kharoi tributary of Brahmaputra and came to our island. The government health department was not able to contact us. The doctors have treated us, and they have also taken our samples for testing,” Ruini said.
Health activist, Padmashree Dr H Sudarshan and his team at Karuna Trust launched the facility along the Brahmaputra on June 21, covering six administrative units of Vishwanath and Lakhimpur. The state-of-the-art boat clinic will serve around 1.17 lakh people living on the banks of the Brahmaputra. About 70% of this population comprises the Mishing tribes, an indigenous community struggling for basics like education and health care.
Earlier, villagers like Ruini used to cross the mighty river in small boats to seek medical help on the other side of the river. She was very grateful to Sudarshan for providing health care to her village of 800 people. “We should encourage pregnant women to come to the boat clinic to deliver,” Ruini said.
The two-storey clinic has an OPD clinic of 1,600 square feet, patient care room with two beds and a minor OT for dressing, sutures and attending to medical emergencies.
Anoop Sarma, NE Director, Karuna Trust, said that a solar plant with a capacity of five kilowatts has been set up to provide uninterrupted power required to run equipment like oxygen concentrators, nebulizers, autoclaves and semi auto analyzers.
“In case of serious patients, they are taken to Vivekananda Hospital, Aadhaar facility in Barangabari village of Gohpur. It has the facility of 10 in-patient beds with delivery room. The medical team, including nurses, returns to the base hospital after a day-long medical camp.”
Dr Sanjib Choudhary, a senior medical officer of the project, who has worked in various government and private hospitals in different states since 1984, said the clinic has all primary and emergency health facilities. “It will certainly help in providing modern healthcare to the villages which are deprived of such basic facilities due to their geographical location and frequent floods,” he said.
Most of the river islands lack infrastructure and service – from healthcare to education, electricity, roads, drinking water and sanitation. Varna has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the state. Sarma said, “In the absence of emergency medical services, it takes four to six hours for a patient to reach the district hospital in four to six hours.
Vishwanath’s DC Pranab Kumar Sarma inaugurated the boat clinic in the presence of Gohpur SDO Aditya Vikram Yadav on the occasion of International Yoga Day and assured all possible support to this effort. In the ongoing vaccination drive, the Vishwanath administration is likely to send its vaccinators to boat-clinics in these remote villages.
Karuna Trust is a pioneer in providing comprehensive primary health services through public-private partnership mode. It manages 70 government primary health centers in six states. The major threats to these river islands are inundation, flooding and erosion. It is almost impossible to access healthcare in such circumstances.
“Building of permanent infrastructure and health facilities in these islands is one of the major challenges due to floods. The boat-clinic will also be used to provide rehabilitation and relief services during natural calamities,” Sarma said.
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