“He who has health has hope; and he who has
hope has everything” – Arabic proverb
India has
made rapid strides in the health sector since independence.
However, various eye opening data from NFHS clearly
indicate that access to healthcare still remains a
challenge.
While the health statistics
of rural India continue to be poor, the health status
and access to health services of urban slum dwellers
on the other has also surfaced to be equally deplorable.
Despite accounting for 1/4th of the country’s
poor population, urban areas have less than 4% of
government primary health care facilities.
Urban slum dwellers suffer
from adverse health conditions owing to mainly two
reasons –first the lack of education and thus
lack of awareness; and second the unwillingness
to lose a day’s wage in order to reach the
nearest medical facility.
The neglect in even the
simplest preventive medical treatment usually leads
to a more serious ailment and eventually into deaths.
The need of the hour is thus a two pronged approach
– first to bring quality health care services
to doorsteps of the needy and second to promote
healthcare awareness and contemporary health care
services seeking behavior among the underprivileged.
In such a scenario a
mobile medical services delivery system is the most
practical mechanism. And in subscription to this
view, Smile Foundation has initiated the Smile on
Wheels programme. This is a unique mobile hospital
programme that seeks to address problems of mobility,
accessibility and availability of primary health
care with a special focus on children and women,
in urban slums and remote rural areas.
The Smile on Wheels programme at present has 12 operational projects running in 11 locations covering 172 slums with the population of 10.67 lakh in 9 states of the country. Since inception in 2006 this programme has directly benefitted 3,89,552 beneficiaries
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