How Kerala's robust healthcare system helped avert crises during the floods

The state established a control room in capital city Thiruvananthapuram to coordinate the logistics of providing manpower and medicines statewide

Around 2.30 am on August 15, 2018, Abey Sushan, the programme manager of the National Health Mission for Pathanamthitta district, got an SOS call from the local administration. Flood waters had entered the taluk hospital in Ranni town and were rising so fast they threatened the safety of inpatients.

Three pregnant women had gone into labour at the hospital which also had 25 bedridden patients. Pathanamthitta was one of the one worst affected districts in the floods that devastated Kerala in August 2018, leaving an estimated 5 million people displaced.

Sushan had to arrange for