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16 August 2010, Jaipur: Smile Foundation launched its mobile hospital programme ‘Smile on Wheels’ in Jaipur today. The newest mobile hospital was flagged off by Mr. B.N. Sharma – Principal Secretary of Health, Govt. of Rajasthan. This is the 10th mobile hospital in the Smile on Wheels programme. With this new unit the programme will be covering a population of 8,98,667 in 126 slums and villages across India.
Smile on Wheels is a community based self-sustainable heath delivery model. It will operate in Jaipur in association with Shikshit Rojgar Kendra Prabandhak Samiti (SRKPS).The project will be implemented in 22 slum areas of Jaipur district. The mobile hospital unit will visit 6 locations – Kalakar, Bhatta, Jagatpura, Jhalana, Bagrana and Idgah, twice every week.
The unit will be covering 22,400 households and a total population of over 1,12,000 in these 6 locations. For the remaining 16 slum areas, a special health camp will be organised every Sunday.
Talking on the role of public private partnerships to cater to the needs of the society, Mr. Pabitra Banerjee, General Manager – Programmes, Smile Foundation said, “The concept of public private partnership has really helped in facilitating health care services to the door steps of underprivileged communities. With the support of our partners, our mission of making health care facilities accessible and affordable for the target communities across the country, will turn into success. With more and more partners in this programme, we can look forward to better health seeking behaviour in the country.”
Stating about their objective and partnership with Smile, Mr. Ranjan Choudhary – Director, SRKPS said “We have always focused on programmes and activities that deal with rural development, educational upliftment, social awareness, welfare of women and children and better health facilities. Providing basic amenities of quality education and health services to the community is the prime objective of SRKPS and to meet this objective the organization is providing quality health services to the deprived community in many districts of Rajasthan. Through Smile on Wheels programme supported by Smile Foundation, we are getting an opportunity to provide health services to slum dwellers in Jaipur district.”
Smile Foundation had established this initiative – Smile on Wheels, in 2006 to facilitate affordable, accessible and accurate health care services to the underprivileged community. The programme is also operational in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.
