Mamata launches 110 mobile health clinics for remote areas; funded largely by MPLADS

“This is a Duare Swasthya–like initiative. It is a clinic on wheels with a doctor, nurse, technician and medicines. Locals will be informed in advance when the unit reaches an area. We want this to go everywhere,” she said.

Each van will offer free testing for some 35 conditions and parameters, including haemoglobin, pregnancy screening, malaria, ECG and blood sugar checks. A lab technician, ECG operator and data operator will form part of every team. The state has budgeted roughly Rs 2.5 crore a month to run the services, about Rs 30 crore a year, Banerjee said.

Officials described the units as targeted at people who face difficulty reaching fixed health facilities. The vans will carry first-aid supplies and essential medicines and will provide scheduled visits announced in advance so residents can plan. Where needed, patients will be referred to district hospitals for follow-up care.

The launch was framed as part of a broader expansion of public health provisioning in the state. “The health budget has increased six-fold since the Left rule,” Banerjee said, noting the state health outlay rose from roughly Rs 3,500 crore then to about Rs 21,500 crore now. She also highlighted the Swasthya Sathi scheme, under which 2.45 crore families, covering some 8.72 crore people,  get up to Rs 5 lakh in health coverage.

Health department sources said training and data systems are being put in place to record tests and link patients to existing schemes. Vans will be redeployed as demand and local needs require, they added.

Banerjee said that earlier many births happened at home and official records were often improvised; today, she said, institutional deliveries account for 99.4 percent of births.

“Earlier, many people were born at home and the date on a certificate became the ‘official’ birthday,” she said, adding that she once asked former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee if he was born on December 25. “He replied, ‘No, Mamata Di, that is not my real birthday. Whatever date my parents had registered officially became my birthday.’ I told him mine was the same, and asked him not to call me on my ‘official’ birthday,” Banerjee recalled

She described the mobile units as especially useful for pregnant women, children and elderly people who cannot easily reach primary health centres.