Eastern India is all set to get a hospital on wheels, said to be the largest such mobile facility that will help provide affordable medical access in remote or rural areas.
The 32-feet Lotus TMT medical bus unveiled recently is likely to start its operations with primary healthcare services such as eye, dental, and ENT check-ups and treatment, general OPD, ECG, and a pathological laboratory, X-ray, and a few other services.
The initiative’s primary purpose is to bring healthcare to the doorstep of people living in underdeveloped and rural areas where medical services are unavailable.
The bus was launched recently in the presence of the West Bengal minister of agriculture. Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, along with minister of state for fire Sujit Bose, state secretary of the West Bengal Trinamool Youth Congress Sayan Deb Chatterjee, founder-director of Anandalok Hospital Dev Kumar Saraf, and head of cardiology and vice chairman of Medica Super Speciality Hospital Dr Kunal Sarkar.
The facilities provided in hospital on wheels
A doctor’s consultation will charge a fee of Rs 10. Medicines will be free for the first time. Spectacles will cost Rs 20, and pathology, X-ray, and ECG will be available at Rs 20.
The mobile hospital will have a team of four doctors, a lab, and an X-ray technician with a patient counsellor.
Goyal group chairman Ramesh Chand Goyal said the bus was launched to offer healthcare facilities at affordable rates in rural areas.
Alok Goyal, the managing trustee of the BDG Ramesh Goyal Seva Sansthan, which donated the bus, said the project’s motive was to promote value-based healthcare and reduce the gap between preventive and high-risk healthcare patients.
