“Container hospital” to bring medical facilities to tribals in Mulugu

Equipped with doctors, necessary equipment and medicines, this hospital will move around the villages to provide medical assistance to tribal families.

Mulugu: As part of the effort to provide medical assistance to tribals living in remote hamlets at their doorstep, the State health department has set up a prefabricated health sub-centre, popular as a “container hospital”, for providing emergency medical treatment to people living in the remote agency area of Pocharam in Bandhala gram panchayat of Tadvai mandal in Mulugu district.

Equipped with doctors, necessary equipment and medicines, this hospital will move around the villages to provide medical assistance to tribal families. The mobile unit will screen suspected patients and drugs will be administered as needed. According to health officials, the main objective of the initiative was to serve five tribal villages that are cut off from the prime area during the rainy season for two to three months.

“It is becoming difficult for the medical staff to go to the remote villages and provide treatment to the tribals due to lack of transport facilities. Hence the Mulugu district collector took the initiative and set up the container hospital,” the officials informed.

Built at a cost of Rs. 7 lakh, the container hospital, designed in Hyderabad, has separate rooms for nurses and health officials. It also features a small lab, allowing for the treatment of seasonal diseases and snakebites, as well as providing delivery facilities for pregnant women. Recently, Minister for Women and Child Welfare Danasari Anasuya launched the facility.

The mobile unit will serve as an additional health sub-center for the villages of Narsapur, Aligudem, Bandhala, and Bolepalli around Pochapur in Bandhala Gram Panchayat of Tadvai Mandal. A local Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM), a local health assistant, and a contingent worker and a security personnel have been appointed to manage the container hospital. While doctors won’t be permanently stationed there, they will visit once or twice a week.

In case of emergency, the mobile unit will be used as an ambulance to shift patients to nearby primary health centres or government hospitals, an official informed. The health officials are expecting the container hospital to play a vital role in providing healthcare to remote tribal hamlets, especially during the ongoing monsoon season.