GUWAHATI, May 12 - In the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, Vivekananda Kendra NRL Hospital has been performing a key role in serving the rural population surrounding Numaligarh Refinery and other remote villages of Golaghat district by conducting Mobile Medical Camps (MMCs), thereby bringing healthcare to the doorsteps of the needy.
The two MMC units of the hospital had resumed their services from April 27 after lockdown restrictions were relaxed, maintaining stringent protective measures such as social distancing, regular sanitization and use of face masks and PPEs as per government guidelines. While one MMC unit is deployed in a nearby village, the other unit visits Numaligarh Refinery Marketing Terminal for Covid-19 screening of truck drivers and attendants, limiting daily registrations to 40 patients to avoid crowding.
�Villages covered till now include Ponka, Bishnupur Sewjpur, Rongbong-I, Rongbong-IV, Bormahari Pathar, Rangchali and Parghat-II. Any person found with high fever or other Covid-19 symptoms is immediately directed to a government hospital for further testing,� an NRL spokesperson said.
MMCs are a noble initiative adopted by VK NRL Hospital in the year 1998 with the support of NRL. It initially began with a skeletal set-up of a doctor, a nurse and nursing attendant who visited nearby rural areas and provided free medicine and advice based on clinical examination. Twelve such centers within a 5-km radius covered a rural population of 25,000. Over the years, the MMCs have grown manifold, organizing on an average of six camps a week covering 60 villages within a radius of 10 kilometres of the refinery and treating 50,000-plus patients in a year.
