Hospital Ship Project
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by
cnesadmin
Hospital Ship is a unique programme designed by Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research (C-NES), which is awaiting its launch soon. Built with original funding from North Eastern Council (NEC) and topped up by funds from Blockchain for Impact (BFI) through Give India Foundation, the Ship, titled is designed to bridge the existing healthcare gaps to ensure quality care to lakhs of marginalized people.
The Ship is being operationalized with funding from National Health Mission, Assam. Clinical and administrative staff, including doctors and specialists are being deployed in collaboration with other stakeholders.
With Specialized medical equipment, technology devices and applications, the Ship will provide 24×7 secondary level care including delivery of pregnant women, C-Sections, minor O&G procedures like MTP, D&E, D&C, I&D, minor surgeries, family planning procedures, diagnostics like ECG and Ultrasonography (USG) and will be equipped with fetosense – a portable device to monitor fetal heart rate.
The Ship aims to drastically reduce maternal and infant mortality rates in regions where high risk pregnancies often go undetected until it is too late. C-NES’ pioneering boat clinics launched in 2005 and supported by NHM in 15 districts, had wide expertise of such interventions.
As the Brahmaputra’s shifting sands and annual floods often hamper land based logistics, the ship will move across the river on pre-determined route with scheduled halts of one month or more at specific locations around the year.
The Hospital Ship builds on the larger services offered by the boat clinics—the clinics provide a basket of primary healthcare services while the Hospital Ship will act as a floating First referral unit (FRU) providing 24X7 secondary level care.
After commissioning, the Ship will be funded by National Health Mission, Government of Assam, C-NES and other stakeholders having experience in running FRU’s and hospitals in the initial period.
The Boat Clinic units and the Riverine PHCs in the targeted districts will identify and refer all high-risk pregnancies for institutional delivery to the Hospital Ship. Feeder Boats and 108 boat ambulance will ferry patients for emergencies directly to the hospital ship.