IEC van flagged off to enhance rural outreach

Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, Febuary 9

The information education and communication (IEC) van was flagged off from Koom Kalan on Saturday under the government’s flagship programme “Tandarust Punjab Sehat Muhim”, to enhance rural outreach.

This unique blockwise mass contact-cum-awareness programme would cover 13 centres to create awareness regarding various diseases and their prevention through proper healthcare and diagnostic intervention.

Community Health Centre Koom Kalan Senior Medical Officer (SMO) Dr Raj Kumar said his department focuses on providing the best healthcare facilities to residents and reaching out more aggressively to those in rural areas. He asked the Health Department to launch more such mass contact programmes in order to sensitise people towards preventive care.

The SMO said the vehicles would cater to basic healthcare needs of the people residing throughout the block. The van is equipped with 42” LED TV, public address systems and elevated platform as a makeshift dais. He said experts interact with the masses to educate them on health issues, besides showing awareness films.

He said basic laboratory tests, including HB, BP, random blood sugar, blood slide for MP, sputum for AFB, visual acuity, near vision (RE/LE) would be conducted on the spot. Free medicines such as paracetamol would be given to the patients. Those requiring further treatment would be referred to the nearest government health facility. A proper follow-up of the patients visiting the camp would also be done.

Rajinder Singh, block extension educator, said the monitoring and feedback mechanism about the movement of the van and medical camp would be maintained online through specially devised software.

Control room to monitor day-to-day progress

• A control room will monitor the day-to-day progress of this van and capture important data related to key parameters, including number of OPDs, medicines, male/female, age and sex.
• Each van will have a visitor’s book to take feedback from community members and carry 35-40 different types of publicity material in the form of pamphlets for distribution among the public.