GUWAHATI: A boat clinic has been launched in Gohpur, Assam that will serve people living in riverine areas and are in need of primary health care. The Vivekananda Boat Clinic will cater to the health needs of people of Gohpur, Behali, Biswanath and Bihpuria areas who are residing near the Brahmaputra River.
The 85-foot long and 18-foot wide Vivekananda Boat Clinic has been developed at a cost of Rs. 50 lakh by Karuna Trust. There are rooms for doctors, nurses, a laboratory, one obstetrics room, a pharmacy and emergency ward. The services of the clinic will be free of cost and the medicine at the pharmacy can be bought at a discounted rate.
The idea behind the boat clinic is to help those people who cannot travel to a health care centre due to communication and other problems. Also, the Vivekananda Boat Clinic will cater to emergency cases during flood times when everything goes down under.
“We have till date advised 56 patients since we opened two days back. From tomorrow, we will be moving to char areas (river islands). We are planning to cover at least two villages every day. This boat can handle pregnancy cases. It has a separate room for delivery of children. We can also keep 4 patients at any given time in this boat. The medicine will be provided at a low, discounted rate,” explained an executive.
Local people have welcomed the boat clinic. They believe it will solve a lot of primary health problems in their area.
“We had to travel 15 kilometres for medical help. Now we have the Vivekananda Boat Clinic and it makes us really happy. It will be of great help to us. In Particular, the child delivery room was a much required necessity. This boat has all the facilities for primary health care,” said a local resident.
