Portable mohalla clinics envisioned for JJ colonies, dense areas in Delhi

The Delhi government is constructing two mohalla clinics inside portable containers in Shakurbasti area of the city, which the authorities plan to replicate in dense cluster colonies where creating health infrastructure at a dedicated building is a challenge owing to space constraints.

A senior official had earlier said the city currently has over 500 mohalla clinics, a neighbourhood facility for providing free primary healthcare to residents.

A typical mohalla clinic has a doctor and a midwife-cum-nurse. It provides an array of diagnostic services and essential medicines free of cost.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain Friday visited the sites of two mohalla clinics being constructed in giant containers in Shakurbasti and took stock of the situation.

"Visited the construction site of 2 new Mohalla Clinics at Shakurbasti. These Clinics have been set up in portable containers. Such Clinics are easy to set up & transport in Cluster areas like Jhuggi-Bastis & narrow streets where healthcare infrastructure is less accessible," he tweeted after his visit

Creating physical healthcare infrastructure in dense area, JJ colonies, unauthorised colonies and inner areas of the city having narrow walls is a challenge, due to lack of space.

The AAP government had in February 2019 flagged off 16 bike ambulances, known as First Responder Vehicles (FRVs), in a district in east Delhi on pilot basis.

The facilities available in FRV include a portable oxygen cylinder, a first aid kit and dressing materials, air-splints, foldable transfer sheets, ambu bags, glucometer, pulse oxymeter, a portable manual suction machine, a GPS device and a communication device.

These FRVs are manned by trained ambulance manpower.

Buoyed by the "overwhelmingly positive response" to the bike ambulance project in east Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in September 2019 had said that plans were afoot to expand the service across the national capital.

"A large number of people in Delhi live in unauthorised colonies or other such areas where streets are very narrow. I was very concerned about how to provide better emergency healthcare to the people living in these colonies. With this in mind, the Bike Ambulance service was launched... Delhi government is planning to extend the service to the entire city," he had said.

Mohalla clinics, one of the flagship initiatives of the Kejriwal government to boost the primary healthcare system in Delhi,.

Jain recently had opened a new mohalla clinic at Tis Hazari court.

In January 2020, two months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Delhi, Chief Minister Kejriwal had inaugurated 152 mohalla clinics en bloc.

Earlier, Jain had said that mohalla clinics help in keeping quacks away, as people have a facility to go to for simple ailments. The plan is to have such facilities as close to households as possible.