Imagine – living in a place where the nearest point to get a paracetamol or medical advice is 2 ½ hours away! There are many such places in India, where medical access is distant, despite the significant gains made in health outcomes in the past decades.

Observing the risks for remote communities, OSF team felt the need of establishing Aarogya  Medical Points (AMPs) in Koraput uplands. Volunteers from villages were identified and a training was given on basic administering of OTC drugs, detecting Covid symptoms etc., with the help of Asha Kiran Hospital, Lamptaput in Koraput Dist.

Presently, AMP centres reach 15 villages covering about 900 households now. For 40% of these homes, the nearest medical shop or clinic is a solid 2 hours away. Now support is at hand from the 7 base centres, which has collapsed the access time for the basic medicines. Every centre is able to attend to 15-20 patients with mild conditions daily that needs OTC medicines. Those who need further attention are advised and sent to PHC / CHC. Timely attention and advice are leading to faster cure among the people.

Normally, in these remote places, people tend to ignore ailments and put-off treatment unless it’s severe and unbearable. As a result, the regular and seasonal activities get delayed or dropped while they wait for the condition to get cured. It leads to a loss of productive man-days whereby family incomes are affected. These days, the risk is that anyone who are Covid infected, could potentially infect others, as the cases go undetected, being passed off as fever. The volunteers at OSF’s AMP centres persuade people to report any symptoms and the network calls for help from the nearest Covid Care point of the state health department.