Sunderbans: State to launch floating vessels to provide healthcare services

Kolkata: The Bengal government has come up with a unique idea of providing health services in the remote parts of Sunderbans under which vessels are being taken to the interiors with the doctors and health workers on board.

There are many island places both in North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas where ambulances cannot reach. The concept of floating health unit has already been implemented in some parts under the Hingalganj block under Basirhat subdivision. Poor people are given health services at their doorsteps. Several places of both North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas are surrounded by islands or rivers being the main mode of transportation.

The floating health centres on vessels have facilities like some diagnostic and vaccination facilities, some services related to mother and children. These floating health units will also have facilities like conducting blood tests and sugar tests. State’s ‘Waiting hut’ concept has become a major success. It is a unique intervention in which pregnant women from inaccessible and remote areas of Bengal are accommodated 7-10 days before delivery in waiting huts, which are situated in the vicinity of the delivery points.

The women are provided with free medicines, diets, diagnostics and referral services. Many such huts have been made operational in the Sunderbans and other far flung areas by the Mamata Banerjee government.

The state has therefore managed to bring down its Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) from 141/1,00,000 live births to 101/1,00,000 live births and has raised the institutional delivery considerably from 88 per cent to 99 per cent.

The waiting huts have increased the confidence of pregnant women living in the far-flung areas, in institutional delivery. In case of complicated pregnancies, the huts are providing exceptional service.