Mobile Medical Units
People live in very unhygienic conditions. Man and animal live in close proximity in deplorable conditions by any standards. During the monsoon seasons, dirt and refuse contaminate water sources. There is no protected water source for drinking purposes. Water-borne diseases are very prevalent–serious diseases like typhoid, malaria, dengue fever, TB, scabies, and cholera are common and affect many. Kids play in the filth and squalor with nobody to educate them. A very high percentage of these kids suffer from various skin diseases. More than half of the patients that our mobile medical units treat are children. Even at a young age these tribals lose teeth because of high fluoride and iron content in water. They have a short life span.
Tribes are in desperate need of all medical help that can be provided. Since they live in isolated areas with no adequate transportation, they are not able to go to government-sponsored clinics situated only in small towns. All live way below the poverty line and cannot afford medical treatment because there is no such thing as medical insurance in this part of the world. We have first-hand reports that scores of women have died during child delivery. The lack of education, extreme poverty, unhygienic conditions, social neglect, and year after year of epidemic outbreaks only keep these tribes entangled in a vicious cycle of poverty and disease.
We have a fully functional mobile medical unit operating since September 2005. Equipped with two Honda motor cycles, a doctor, an assistant, and two local missionaries travel into remote areas on dirt roads with precious medical supplies to reach and cater to these neglected people of society. Every month on average we have conducted five medical camps in different areas giving free medical check ups, and advice to all those who turn up and free medicines to those in dire need. We have been giving free medicines to about 250 patients and approximately twice that number were given complete medical check ups, and counseling every month. We refer all serious cases to hospitals in nearby towns. Our objective is to take mobile hospitals to people in abject poverty living far away from medical facilities and no means to visit them. Some tribes are fierce and hostile but mobile medical units help us to befriend and deliver them from the cycle of sickness and poverty, ultimately giving them dignity and hope to live for.
We plan to introduce another mobile medical unit to the more needy remote areas already identified. This unit will comprise of a qualified doctor, a medical assistant, two local missionaries, two Honda motor cycles, backpacks, medical kits, and medicine for at least one year. We also plan to increase the medical supplies of the already existing medical unit for one more year. By doing this we intend to show the love of Jesus in tangible ways to these most neglected people groups and to better the living conditions of these societies as a whole.
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