Help villages and underserved areas get access to health care by Rural Health Care Foundation

Between January and June 2021, we continued to provide high quality and low-cost care to our under-served communities. We operated our units with general medicine, optometry and homoeopathy departments and pharmacies. We had restarted our dental departments but once the cases started increasing again, we quickly suspended them again to reduce chances of COVID transmission. We operated 8 centres across rural West Bengal and treated a total of 74,042 patients — 57,280 patients through general medicine, 8805 through optometry, 4830 through homoeopathy and 1456 through dentistry departments—making our total impact since our inception to be over 2.6 million patients. The 2nd wave of COVID hit us during this time but we had been more prepared and our centres remained open even during the lockdown. We followed the required safety measures to keep our patients protected against the virus and continued to educate them about precautions that they and their families can take to shield them. This March we also completed 12 years of work for our communities. While in our decade long experience, this pandemic would certainly be considered one of the most challenging issues we have faced, we are still very grateful to have found support in our benevolent donors who stood with our communities.

The COVID-19 crisis has thrown quite a few challenges at us. Repeated spikes in cases and lockdowns made it difficult for patients to reach our centres. Limited means of transportation and their operators hiking the charges for the commute made the situation tough for the poor patients, even after lockdown restrictions were eased. Train services had been closed so that made it hard for patients to seek care. But, we kept our centres open for the ones who could reach us. We also continued to keep our services affordable for our patients to prevent further strain on their income. Many rural residents, because of a lack of proper information and education about the outbreak, had been unwilling to visit healthcare centres in fear of getting infected. Others had been wary of wearing masks so our teams had been actively engaged in spreading awareness among the patients and their accompanying family members about the COVID and safety measures they can take to reduce transmission. We also continued to make masks or proper face coverings mandatory for all patients to keep them as well as others safe during their visit. It also aided in educating them about the masks. The efforts helped. Though most of them were still scared, especially considering the variant’s high transmissibility, more patients started seeking care for their illnesses and ailments. We faced difficulties in fundraising as well, with many of our donors, understandably, facing financial constraints from the economic effects of the pandemic. This has especially been concerning because of the rising cost of medicines which increased our cost of operations. We are, however, determinedly trying to continue our mission without hindering the quality of care and have made cutbacks to our budget to counter the challenges.

Story from the ground: 50-year-old Mangali Roy has struggled with poverty all her life. During the pandemic, however, her difficulties were severe. Her family’s income was affected and there were times when they had to rely on relief kits for their survival. Mangali is a homemaker and, at a time when her family was struggling to make ends meet, she was finding it difficult to access treatment. She hadn’t faced too many health issues before so hadn’t required much medical care. This time, however, she needed to see a doctor. She was experiencing severe body pain. Yet, she didn’t have the money to visit a proper healthcare facility. Her husband had started working again but the income was limited. She visited us after she found out about our affordable care. Her symptoms eased right after she started her treatment. For even healthier people like Mangali, poor diet and improper difficult living conditions often lead to ailments but with effective treatment, their quality of life improves significantly. During this period of crisis, our compassionate donors ensured this quality primary care for patients like her.

High quality and low cost primary medical care for the underprivileged

Good health can strengthen communities to overcome challenges of poverty and even strive for a better future. Thus, we have been continuing our efforts with vigour and making high quality primary care accessible and affordable for the poor in both rural and urban regions of West Bengal through our out-patient healthcare centres. In the last quarter, we succeeded in providing over 85,000 underprivileged patients with quality primary care. With over 60% being female patients, our work has been continuing to empower the underprivileged women with stronger health. Inadequate healthcare system is still a critical issue affecting the poor in India but our impact has been reasserting our faith in our efforts.

Patients receiving the care and support

Program Update

While rural areas are affected by lack of medical facilities, quality care provided in cities are unaffordable for urban underprivileged communities. Our healthcare centres are focused on delivering quality medical care at low-cost to serve these people living in underserved areas. Between January and March 2019, 69612 patients received treatment at our healthcare centres - 53593 in General Medicine, 8216 in Optometry, 2606 in Dentistry and 5197 in Homeopathy. Our plan for the next quarter not only includes the continued service of communities through our high-quality and low-cost patients, but also access of healthcare facilities for more people in need of medical care through newer centres.

Story from the field

Lively, strong, good-humoured and resilient Farha Swakat (Prescription No. 55674) is a 36 year old woman who has been visiting our primary healthcare centre at Zakaria Street regularly. She started visiting our doctor after developing skin problems. For people, especially women, of underprivileged families, getting proper treatment becomes difficult. Often the low-cost treatment facilities fail to adhere to basic healthcare standards and offer unsatisfactory services. Ineffective treatment affects the health of the patients. Since the earnings of underserved communities are hardly enough to seek quality care offered by private firms, their health suffers further. Our urban healthcare centres were opened to counter this very problem and help patients like Farha. Affordability makes it easy for her to avail our care and stick to the treatment plan recommended by our physician. Repeat visits don’t affect her earnings either. She visited our centre on 10th May to follow up on her skin issues. Very familiar with our staff, she got her check up done at low-cost and took the free 1-week’s supply of the prescribed medication. She has been continuing her treatment and is getting better as well. She fights financials constraints almost everyday, but with affordable and effective primary medical care, we try to ease her otherwise rough life.