Ranchi/Chaibasa: The ANMs of the state are playing an important role in taking health services to the masses. E-scooty is becoming helpful in providing health services to villages located in remote and inaccessible areas of
Chaibasa (West Singhbhum).
In this part of Chaibasa, the village is reached with the help of forest trails with the ups and downs of mountains. The region is one of the less developed districts of the country and has been recognized as an aspirational district by the central government. There are many areas in the district which are considered inaccessible due to the difficult mountainous terrain and the health workers have to go to some such places where the only option to reach is on foot.
At present, this problem is being solved through 180 scooters in 342 health subcentres of Chaibasa. In the second phase of the Covid-19 pandemic when the administration had to brainstorm on the options of providing easy healthcare to all the people of rural areas for coronavirus tests and to protect them from seasonal diseases during the transition period itself.
An action plan to provide e-scooty in 342 health sub-centers of the district was prepared under innovation in July 2021 by Ananya Mittal, Deputy Commissioner of West Singhbhum district. This innovation is also important because with the use of this vehicle, the ANM of the health center can easily reach the rural areas using the trails and there is no problem of increasing carbon emissions in the area.
Negotiations were initiated with the corporates and specialist agencies under the leadership of the Deputy Commissioner to kick-start the innovation and with a concerted effort, the plan got off the ground. In the initial phase, a plan was made to make each electric scooter available in the health subcentre and for the execution of this complete plan, more than 30 organizations were requested to provide necessary electric scooters or provide financial assistance to the district administration for purchase. Innovation got a boost and electric scooters were made available to the district administration by industrial institutions.
The list was prepared on the basis of performance by the health department and e-scooty distribution work started in the district. The distribution of e-scooty in the inaccessible areas was ensured with the help of industrial institutions like ACC, Central Warehousing Corporation and Tata Steel Foundation in the district.
The use of electric scooters, which was achieved by the determination of the district administration, proved to be a boon for the ANM today. Where earlier two to three villages were visited by them, today there is an increase of three to four times. At the same time, due to its use, maximum health care and information is being made available to the villagers in less time. Vehicles are also being used by ANMs to carry medical equipment and medicines along with village tours.
Along with this, the patients of the concerned area who were unable to reach the hospital due to non-availability of transport, are also being brought to the hospital by the said vehicle with the help of the villagers. This was the first innovation in Jharkhand when electric scooters were made available at health sub-centres on a large scale to provide easy and timely health care, to make public aware, to dispel myths related to health matters.
“To reduce the spread of Covid-19 infection, health facilities were made easily accessible to a large population. E-scooty was helpful in this work to a great extent are doing it,” said Ananya Mittal, Deputy Commissioner, Chaibasa.