Why Healthcare
It is well recognized that improvement in health status of population is both an important means of sustaining economic and social development as well as an end in itself. While India has made rapid strides in the health sector since independence, data from NFHS-5 indicates that access to healthcare still remains a challenge.
Nearly 72% of the population in India still lives in rural areas and has access to about 25% of the healthcare infrastructure. Urban slum dwellers, on the other hand, suffer from adverse health conditions owing to mainly two reasons –first the lack of awareness; and second the unwillingness to lose a day’s wage in order to reach the nearest medical facility.
The sheer vastness and geo-spatial diversity of the country also make it difficult to meet the healthcare needs of the entire population. With the pandemic further highlighting the need to strengthen the healthcare system, it has become imperative to shift focus on last mile delivery to rural areas, universal health coverage, public health, and preventive healthcare.
What Dastak Foundation Do
Dastak Foundation started its health programme with a view to provide healthcare to all irrespective of location and socio-economic standards, nonetheless, with a special focus on urban poor and underserved villagers. Keeping the health of children, women, and other vulnerable populations in mind, mobile health clinics were started which could reach out to people in the far-flung areas and informal settlements of the cities where people lack awareness about basic healthcare.
These people are mostly daily wagers and have no time to go for even free-of-cost health check-ups in government hospitals
Dastak Foundation’s healthcare programme aims at taking healthcare at the doorsteps of people and also encourages health awareness and contemporary healthcare-seeking behaviour among underprivileged people. It is done through campaigns, health camps organised at regular intervals, and providing health screening, medical care, and medicines through mobile health clinics.
With telemedicine services becoming bliss for people living in remote areas, Smile Foundation has integrated the telemedicine model with the mobile healthcare programme. Dedicated telemedicine centre and e-health clinics have been set up where patients from remote rural areas can avail tele-consultation facilities with paramedics, lab facilities and medicines being available at the centre.