Proposal for ambulance services program

Identified locations for the ambulance service program (18 villages of Diamond Harbour-1, Diamond Harbour-2, Falta and Magrahat block) include villages that are least developed villages. The population is mainly dominated by the scheduled cast, backward minority, and backward caste people. Average literacy among this group is below par and is around 20 percent. The educational status of backward women is even worse at 9%. Agriculture related activities are the mainstay of the majority population in the targeted block. Availability of Public infrastructure like Roads connectivity, PHC, Hospital, electric supply, water sources is poor in these villages. Traditionally most of the deliveries are conducted in extremely poor conditions among our targeted group. This rate of institutional delivery is very poor.

Following are the problems that justify ambulance services in the targeted areas:

Poverty and low income.Unsafe motherhood and periled childhood (High IMR-81 and MMR- 73)

Majority reproductive age group mother dies due to pregnancy-related reason.

Many such lives can be saved by the timely availability of referral services.

Lack of awareness related to referral service facilities in the state.

Insufficient awareness of immunization, nutrition, sanitation, and hygiene.

Insufficient physical infrastructure like poor road connectivity, electricity, public transport facilities.

Public specialized hospitals at long distances.

Being very close to megacity, Kolkata, still in the rural areas people face a lot of problems with health and the reality is not satisfactory. Gender discrimination, class & cast conflict, mass unemployment, feudalism, recurring failure of agriculture, child marriage, bad nutritional & health status of the girl child are a few burning problems in the district. It is 2nd largest district in respect of SC and backward Muslims community. Early child marriage is frequent in these communities. The school drop out rate is also very high among them. They are frequently denied the right of a girl baby. Malnutrition is a very common phenomenon in these communities.

Providing rapid access to specialized medical services through public hospitals to reproductive age group mothers and children/adolescents below 15 years from targeted 5000 families. Increase the capacities of emergency medical response by creating awareness about the complication in pregnancy & disease/accidents. Helping people to avail referral services and first aid. Reducing practices of infant deliveries at unsafe and unmonitored places like home, also working towards reducing child mortality and maternal mortality.

This program will be integrated into our ongoing women empowerment program. The existing community based organization formed under this project will form an ambulance service monitoring committee. The committee in consultation with us will decide ambulance usage charges from time to time, also to monitor the progress of the program.

The committee will also appoint one nodal person(volunteer basis) in all program villages. The nodal person will be responsible for all needful coordination of ambulance affairs. Our existing projects team will create necessary awareness about various issues related to this program viz. Signs and symptoms of pregnancy-related complications, extreme sickness in children, referral points, first aid in case of emergency, etc. There will be provision of small fee so that the services sustain till long time. The ambulance driver will maintain a logbook and update a periodic progress report.

To assess the impact of the program, feedback from beneficiaries will be sought on regular basis. The rate of institutional delivery of infants will increase. The child and mother mortality rate will reduce making a better community for all. The overall quality of health status will improve manifolds for these communities. Committee members will regularly evaluate that expected outcomes are occurring or not. Thus impact will be measured and modifications will be made as per.

With our ambulance service, we will target 18 villages around Kolkata. We will be able to raise awareness and be able to help thousands of expecting mothers and children/adolescents. We are also aiming to target a total of 5000+ families during our first year of operation of this project.