The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in the entire country. In April, it was total bedlam, with citizens scrambling for oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators, ICU beds, and ambulances. Securing access to basic medications, quick transport, food/ration, sanitary supplies, medical advice and urgent mental health counselling support, has been a tragic struggle for many.

Unsurprisingly, the pandemic has disproportionately affected women and their physical and mental health. Unlike last year, the virus severely impacted pregnant and lactating mothers. Increasingly, concerns pertaining to the virus’ adverse effects on mothers and their unborn babies, labour and delivery, and neonatal outcomes including death, are arising.

These risks are more pronounced for women residing in lower-income communities such as urban slums. In Mumbai for instance, slum communities constitute 42% of the city’s households. Yet, inadequate access to basic healthcare, water and sanitation facilities make them particularly susceptible to the outbreaks like covid-19. Further, the digital divide and the social stigma attached to vaccinations leave these communities particularly hesitant to get the jab. While of course we first need to deal with the acute vaccine shortage the country has found itself grappling with, in due course, addressing vaccine hesitancy should also be a priority.

In the meanwhile, such unprecedented issues require extraordinary solutions. One grass-root based social enterprise, Myna Mahila Foundation has come up with a fantastic solution. They are currently developing a mobile health clinic, which involves vehicles providing medical supplies to urban slum communities and monitoring patients’ health conditions locally.

Myna Mahila Foundation aims to support women and children struggling to get access to healthcare services. They also seek to address misinformation and disinformation by providing access to telemedicine facilities. The health clinics would be tremendously beneficial for pregnant women who do not have access to antenatal care. Their fundraiser states, “The COVID response will be focused on procuring the medical supplies and delivering it to those without access to such supplies in underserved communities. In the process, the mobile clinic will serve as a major step towards bridging the gap between the demand for and the supply of oxygen cylinders in such communities. The clinic will focus on especially vulnerable populations, such as women and children in urban slums and provide them with health care services, menstrual hygiene products, health essentials and more”

The idea of such clinics may appear new to some of us but various researches have emphasised the efficiency of mobile health clinics throughout the world. These clinics are known to successfully reduce barriers in access to healthcare and that is what we need right now! They are popularly used by international organisations like UNICEF and World Health Organisation. In the USA, mobile clinics play a pivotal role in their health care system, mostly for reaching out to underserved communities.

Our team believes that with the support of our badass community, we can help Myna Mahila Foundation build a mobile health clinic and thousands by providing medical facilities and guidance. We urge our community to donate any amount to our fundraiser and share it with their family and friends.

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