Urban Mobile Health Unit

The National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) seeks to improve the health status of the urban population particularly of the poor and disadvantaged segment of population by facilitating equitable access to quality health care through a revamped public health system and community-based mechanism with the active involvement of the urban local bodies. In consideration with the urban poor and disadvantaged section of the community, it is increasingly realized that a sizeable percentage of population do not reside in slums but stay in temporary settlements. Similarly, the urban poor living in slums or slum like conditions especially the most vulnerable groups are exposed to wide array of diseases. Lack of access to health care delivery points backed by low health/treatment seeking behavior compound the plight of the poor and they are deprived of health facilities provisioned for them and in turn the incidence of preventable diseases and deaths rises alarmingly. Hence, To address the health issues of the vulnerable groups, especially the mobile population by providing preventive, primitives and curative health care services at their doorsteps on routine manner and thereby creating an enabling environment through awareness generation for improved health seeking behavior towards public health, one Mobile Health Unit (MHU) is running since 15th December 2015 in the slums of Bhubaneswar by OVHA with the support of National Urban Health Mission (NUHM). It covers around one lakh population. OVHA have undertaken various health and hygiene initiatives in order to provide services to the underprivileged sections of society. The intention behind this initiative was to provide free medical check-ups, medication and healthcare facilities at doorstep to the larger community who do not have access to good quality medical support. The mobile medical van have been providing free discourse for more than 5 years and reached out to lakhs of underprivileged people in Bhubaneswar Slum. While normal health services for basic illnesses like cough, cold, fever, infections, malaria etc are provided by the Van. Through the mobile medical Van,OVHA also identifies the most widespread disease as per the season and provides a road map for the cause accordingly. These visits also served as an educational platform for the society where citizens are taught about the Dos and Donts to maintain proper and better hygiene, with a focus on preventive health