Have You Heard Of The Lifeline Express?

The Lifeline Express or Jeevan Rekha Express is a noble venture started in collaboration with the Indian Railways and Ministry of Health. It aims at bringing healthcare to the neglected in India. It is the world’s first hospital on a train run by the IMPACT India Foundation. Rural areas in India are the worst affected when it comes to getting access to healthcare. Access to healthcare is limited in these areas. The Lifeline Express brings the hospital to the people in the form of a train equipped with medical equipment. Aboard this train is a team of trained doctors, nurses and technicians from all over India who offer volunteer services to make this a reality.

Their services

The train provides both diagnostic and therapeutic services in remote areas which have access to a railway line. Besides this, it is also equipped to perform surgical procedures. The train boasts of four fully functional operation theaters which can cater to most basic surgical needs. A wide variety of surgeries can be performed with the available resources including eye, ENT, and basic rehab surgeries in this self-sufficient unit. In this way, it acts as a bridge between the urban and rural setups by bringing modern day healthcare to the underprivileged in the remote areas of India.

We were lucky to get some firsthand information from Mayank Mehrotra Senior Resident Anesthesiology at Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, who volunteered to serve at the Lifeline Express at Lalitpur [Madhya Pradesh].

Here are the excerpts – 

Says Mayank,

“It is heartwarming to see the smiles on arriving at a camp. There is an atmosphere of positivity around you. There is hope and a desire to achieve the unachievable. The volunteers and the service liaison officers who connect with the local people are filled with enthusiasm. Their mere presence is enough to charge you up to deliver your 200%. The experience is an intensely satisfying one. There are a lot of memories I have of working aboard the Lifeline Express, and I will surely cherish them all my life.”

How and why did you choose to work with the Lifeline Express?
I was a part of a team of doctors from Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, who were deputed to provide services. I find myself lucky to have volunteered for this opportunity when the selection for this process for the team was made at the hospital. I volunteered as I love wilderness and medicine. I was happy to be able to contribute to the needy and underprivileged of my country. I love to work with children and the training camp that I signed up for was for corrective limb surgeries at Lalitpur. I find myself blessed to have been given this opportunity to serve my people.

The doctors appointed are by choice or a mandate to serve?
The doctors who work are both volunteers as well as deputation teams from the Government of India. I was part of a deputation team from Safdarjung Hospital for corrective limb surgeries. I served as a volunteer anesthesiologist for the deputation team to Lalitpur. However on contacting them, I was pleased to know that I also had the option of rendering volunteer services in the future.

What is the typical schedule?
The schedule is pretty flexible. The schedule for each camp works with a basic scheme where the first day acts as an outpatient day/ pre-anesthetic checkup day. The day is spent in selecting candidates best suited for medical or surgical interventions, and a treatment plan is drawn up accordingly. In consultation with the families of the patients, a suitable treatment plan is tailored for them. The next few days are divided into more OPDs and the latter part of the day is spent in the operation theater for performing curative and palliative surgeries. The teams break for lunch midday in between these sessions.

Any limitations in Lifeline Express 
I would say that the Lifeline Express does as much as possible for the people. However, modern day medicine relies heavily on diagnostic tests like CAT Scans and Imaging for diagnosis of certain disorders. So the limitation regarding the treatment provided is only due to the diagnostic capabilities of that region. These patients are not left to fate and are provided with contact and connected to the nearest possible health facilities for further workup and management. Besides providing treatment, it also provides screening for a lot of cancers and other disorders for which expert care is available at tertiary care centers. Nonetheless, the service is evolving every day and by the time I had left, there were already plans in the pipeline to provide gynecological consult aboard the train.

How has the Lifeline Express served so far?
The train has served 600,000 Indians till date and completed almost 120 projects.

In 2007, The RED RIBBON EXPRESS was launched on World AIDS Day i.e. 01 December. The train with the motto “Embarking on the Journey of Life” is an AIDS/HIV awareness campaign to promote safe sex and reduce discrimination against AIDS victims in India.

So could we say Rural Health is now in Safe Hands?
Not really, the trains are just a slight effort in filling the gap, but expecting them to serve as the CHANGEMAKER would mean setting High expectations. Raising awareness and proactive checkups are few of the things that these trains have been doing on a regular basis, but what rural people need is safe drinking water, proper sanitation, and nutritious food to tackle the basic health problems. After all, as Mahatma Gandhi said - Its health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver, that matters at the end of the day. 

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