Access to healthcare in most African countries is steadily increasing although several barriers hinder faster access. These barriers include; poor road infrastructure, corruption, poor administration, and other third-world challenges that have seen people in remote areas still face the scarcity of basic amenities that could change their lives to modern standards at the least health-wise. Of course permanent solutions could be the ultimate goal. However, mobile clinics offer a realistic and immediate solution of the plug-and-go kind that will immediately attend to medical situations and be able to reach populations with ease.
Most African developments were mostly centered in urban areas, this in turn led to the concentration of populations near urban centers for eased access to government facilities, social amenities, economic support, and many aspects of social engagements and interaction. Over time this led to reduced development in far-flung areas that were thereafter regarded as marginalized. So rough and tough are these areas affected by the scarcity that basic amenities seem like news, from education to technological equipment and access to government support and services.
Using Container Mobile Clinics to Enhance Access to Universal Healthcare in Counties
The county governments that were brought into Kenya for instance with the new constitution of 2010 have done a lot to reach out to these corners but still, a lot needs to be done. Luckily the humanitarian spheres have taken interest and several actions in order to avail basic commodities to these areas. Besides the insecurity threat, accessing medical supplies and food, especially during droughts still remain a challenge to these areas 9 years after embracing the new constitution that devolved governance and budget in a bid to serve all Kenyans closely.
Being an important aspect of life, the provision of affordable health care remains an agenda for every leadership worldwide. It is interesting in the current political dispensation how much it has taken central space. We believe this gives room for technological and modern solutions to help avert the ever-present access to medical solutions crisis that for so long has been burdening remote areas.
For instance, the use of mobile clinics can jumpstart the remedies and help reach remote areas instantly as several NGOs have demonstrated. This saves on time and resources that could be used to construct a hospital, especially in pastoralist communities. A mobile clinic is basically a customized motor vehicle that travels to communities to provide healthcare. Some are made out of container fabricated mobile clinics that are equipped with relevant medical equipment to be able to serve a given area for a given time and then be moved to another location depending on arising needs and populations.
The mobility will help in keeping track of the vulnerable communities and be responsible as a government to the entire population to reduce and improve the mortality rate, through prompt treatment, immunization, prevention, and care for the population. This will lead to the achievement of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which include the delivery of interventions to reduce child mortality, maternal mortality, and the burden of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
All these can be achieved by focusing on key functions of a health system by ensuring the availability of health services and securing access to them. The Kenyan government outlined Universal Health Coverage as a primary priority and this can use mobile clinics extensively to offer the needed service in far-flung areas for equal access to medical care for its citizenry.
We are currently in country general elections mode and several aspirants are promising health care as a basis of their campaigns and election manifestos. It is an important factor in the social welfare of the economy that indeed depends on the efforts and hard work of citizens to grow. Private companies have taken the lead in developing container mobile clinics that are well equipped to reach these rural areas and offer much-awaited assistance. ISM Containers in Westlands is one of the companies fabricating mobile clinics from containers.
It is such an important pillar that the top 4 contenders for the presidency in Kenya (2022 elections) have actually gone for the acclaimed phrase copycat ‘Obamacare’ that was once a great rally to the election of President Barrack Obama of the United States of America. But not to minimize these efforts, focusing on modern medical solutions and partnering with technological solutions will indeed help in using mobile clinics to enhance attaining universal medical healthcare.
