Using a Motorcycle as an Ambulance
The empowerment of village communities in preventing and treating illness is a vision central to our work. Our plan is to support this system with a low-cost curative service, to study and address the problems of public health in rural areas with appropriate solutions, to evolve low-cost technology which would address the problems of rural health, and to raise the capacity of other organisations by functioning as a technical resource group.
Our approach is centered around a three-tiered platform. The first level is the Village Health Workers, trained to provide primary and curative services in their village. The second level is the Village Health Centers, where outreach clinics are held on a weekly basis. Finally, there is the Ganiyari clinic, where an outpatient clinic is held three times a week, and which has hospital wards, operating theatres, x-ray facilities and a laboratory.
Crossing a River with a Stretcher
Some of our specific intiatives have been focused in the following areas:
- Appropriate Technology - cost effective tools and tests
- Childhood Nutrition
- Malaria
- Tuberculosis
- Sustainable Agriculture
Cellular Medecine
We initiated use of cell phones for all peripheral workers so that they can consult their seniors including doctors including specialists in their PHC and CHC as well as the faculty doctors at the local medical colleges, and thus make correct decisions.
"Celli-medicine" ( cell phone medicine) has improved the quality of care at the most peripheral villages. They have allowed the health workers:
- Sharing of the clinical complaints of a sick person and seeking of a second opinion with a more senior health worker for decision making.
- Checking with a senior person about the dose of drugs, investigations to be advised, and deciding the urgency of referral
- Asking a more central health service for transport support such as an ambulance in case of an emergency.
- Receive reports or advice from the referral centre for any referred patient.
- Sending of pictures of clinical problems to a consultant for opinion and decision making.
- communication with other health workers for administrative issues and for more efficient work planning.
