Mobile clinics take healthcare to New Delhi's poorest

Five days a week, six mobile clinics park in some of Delhi's poorest areas. Photo / AP

When the clinic on wheels pulls up in one of Delhi's poorest neighbourhoods, its bright red light flashing, women and their children rapidly form a neat line.

Some are here for a check-up, others because their child has a fever or a persistent cold. Some are queuing to collect medicine. All are keen to avail themselves of a service they would otherwise have to travel miles to receive. Best of all, it is free.

Payal Devi, an 18-year-old woman, has her six-month-old daughter who has been having problems breathing because of mucus on her chest. "Without this bus, we would have to go to the hospital 10 miles away," she says. "I would have to take a bus, and a rickshaw. It would cost me up to 200 rupees ($5)."

The idea behind the clinic on wheels that operates in India's capital city, is simple enough. But like many simple concepts, it has had powerful results. Five days a week, six such vans park in some of the city's most poorest districts and provide free basic healthcare, medicine and counselling to people who have few alternatives. These are people for whom 200 rupees may represent more than a day's pay.

The clinics are equipped with two doctors, a nurse, pharmacist, and a small laboratory that is capable of checking blood types, measuring platelet counts and even testing for typhoid, malaria and dengue.

If an individual is found to have a more serious ailment, the clinic will help make an appointment for that person at a government hospital. The vans can each tend to up to 160 patients a day.

"In Delhi, there is a huge gap between demand and supply for healthcare, especially for the migrant communities," says Prasanta Das, a senior co-ordinator with Save the Children, which funds the clinics.

Today, the clinic is stopped in the Jeevan Jagti Rajeev camp, a cluster of shacks and simple homes located in the Okhla industrial area in the city's southeast. The area is known for its factories, warehouses and textile mills.

The people who live here in simple shacks, most of them economic migrants from northern India, have little access to sanitation or other services. There is lots of pollution and, during the dusty months of summer, the air is particularly vile.

By closely monitoring records, the doctors who work on the mobile clinics are able to draw up a profile of each area and plot the types of ailment they are likely to encounter. This is especially helpful when they stock their medicines every day.

At the van's next stop, in the Indira Kalayan Camp, an outreach session is under way in the compound of a temple. A woman is advising a group of about 20 women on matters such as the need to regularly wash their bed sheets and importance of a good diet for their children. One of those listening is a woman called Mishat, who is carrying a young girl who wears a pale pink hat. "I have learned about how important it is to get a child treated early," she says. "There is no alternative for getting this sort of information."

- INDEPENDENT