Role of boat clinics in the land of river islands

The river island of Assam, which remains disconnected from the mainland during the most critical days of life, i.e., during the flood, has no other alternative to rely on for health emergencies other than the boat clinics and it is these boat clinics that have always been playing a crucial role towards the healthcare of this part of the state. The rural assam, especially, the rural and remote river islands of the state have always been subjected to suffer from the dearth of proper healthcare facilities which has resulted into massive damage done to life in that remote part of the state. People are complled to suffer deteriorasting health conditpons and ultimately die lackig proper medication and treatment. On such grounds, the only ray of hope the poor people of the river island are availing at this present age is the boat clinic, which, as suggested by the name, is a moving clinic on boat and is the only medium to reach the sufferers living in the remote areas.

As is officially known, there are more than 2000 river islands in Brahmaputra and not all of those are situated in a near distance to the hospitals. Even for many of those villagers, reaching the nearest hospital would take many hours. On such grounds, in emergency situations like in case of maternal pain, diseases of infancy etc, one cannot hope to rush to the hospitals but to take shelter in the boat clinics which are the only sources of medication for one.

The first boat clinic to operate in the remote river islands and to opt for healthcare of its people was named “Akha”, or Hope that started operating in 2005 from Dibrugarh district. The pioneering mind behind this concept of boat clinics was an enterprising journalist, named Sanjoy Hazarika. According to Hazarika “the service should go to people rather than people coming to the service”.

Now there are boat clinics in 13 districts in Assam and a team of 250 people is divided into 15 units. Each of these units includes doctors, nurses and community workers.

Keywords: Assamese news paper Khabar, Assamese Daily Newspaper, Assamese Newspaper Online, Online Assamese Paper, Dainik Janambhumi Newspaper, Assamese Newspaper

For more news, visit:  www.thejanambhumi.com

Similar news blogs: http://www.ndtv.com/blog http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/