Village Resource Centre(s)
Due to increasing dependence of rural population on private health services, which often leads to indebtedness in rural areas, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in India with Dept. of Science & Technology, Ministry Of Health & Family Welfare and Dept. of Space devised a workable model called “Village Resource Center” (VRC).
To take Healthcare India on an IT platform to the rural poor, this was a project/ research experiment under the Science & Society programme of the Department of Science & Technology.
This Public Private Partnership model aims at socio-economic development and direct linkages in the improvement of social infrastructure.
The concept was unique wherein the private player namely Sir Ganga Ram Hospital was provided with the space inside the Government Community Health Center to run a medical kiosk as a part of its Village Resource Centre. The medical kiosk consists of the following:
Medical kiosk is a part of VRC along with Tele-medicine with the aim of quality Healthcare India, early diagnosis, treatment and tertiary consultation from Base Station (i.e. at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi) through Tele-consultation.
The VRC concept has been evolved by ISRO and implemented through a partnership with Sir Ganga Ram Hospital by integrating ISRO's capabilities in satellite communications and satellite based earth observation to disseminate a variety of services emanating from the space systems and other Information Technology tools to address the changing and critical needs of rural communities. The VRC is a totally interactive VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) based network. To start with, the network consists of four nodes located at Gohana, Sonepat, Kaithun and Dasmal. The central node is located at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi. The network uses one of the extended C-band transponders of the INSAT-3A satellite. Users located at one node of this network can fully interact with others located at another node through video and audio links. Each of the four nodes can be further extended using other technologies like Wi-Fi, Wireless and Optical Fibre. These extensions may serve as local clusters around the areas where the VRC is located.
The department of Science & Technology has provided all the medical equipment for the medical kiosks, the department of Space has provided the satellite equipment and given the broadband through VSAT connectivity. They have also given GRAM SAT, EDU SAT and AGRI SAT for theVillage Resource Centres.
Apart from Telemedicine, VRCs can also provide a variety of services like tele-education, online decision support, interactive farmers' advisory services, tele-fishery, e-governance services, weather services and water management. By providing tele-education services, the VRCs act as virtual community centric learning centres. At the same time, VRCs will provide connectivity to specialty hospitals thus bringing the services of expert doctors closer to the villages.
The manpower and the medical technologies at the Village Resource Centre is provided by Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.
The Health & Family Welfare department of the State Government has provided the space in the Community Health Centre and the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has provided the funds for the interiors along with the furniture.
Thus, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital VRC project strives to promote a need based single window delivery system for providing services in the areas of education, health, nutrition, weather, environment, agriculture and livelihoods to the rural population to empower them to face challenges.
In the very first year this model won the Asian Hospital Management Award 2006 for the “Rural Health Initiative” project in Community Service category for its unique concept among 53 countries in the Asia region.
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital’s on-site ‘breast cancer’ screening program is structured to be time-efficient and convenient and is the only one if it’s kind in India. Picture Achieve Communication System (PACS), which digitally converts the image and transmits through broadband to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in India, is a highlight of this project.
The major objectives of the Mammography project are:
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Connects women to primary health care.
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Ensure that the women receives timely, quality follow up services when indicated
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Detect breast cancer early when they are easily treatable
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Encourage women to obtain breast cancer screening services as part of their routine health care.
OBJECTIVES OF VILLAGE RESOURCE CENTRE
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To reduce mortality and morbidity rate
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To take Secondary health care to rural interiors
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To improve socio-economic status
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To reduce rural indebtedness
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To bring about preventive health care through education and awareness.
STUDIES BEING CONDUCTED AT VRC
Epidemiological studies are being jointly conducted by the department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in India to understand the changing disease patterns of the area in relation to their habits and habitat.
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