A full-fledged, self-sufficient mobile medical unit for cancer screening, including all basic diagnostics and ultrasound scan, fully designed and equipped by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), will now take medical care to the rural areas in Karnataka.
The mobile unit, named Asha Kirana, was flagged off from C-DAC on Monday evening, to be delivered to Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, Bengaluru.
Tailor-made
This is the fourth such mobile unit to be designed by C-DAC, which has now earned quite a name for producing fully equipped, tailor-made mobile medical solutions for the health sector.
The unit has been built out of a 11-m-long Viking chassis of a luxury bus. Apart from a spacious driver’s cabin and spacious seats for the medical team, the unit incorporates a mini lab with a haematology analyser, auto analyser and a digital microscope; an examination area with a surgical table for doing minor procedures; a digital X-ray unit in pneumatic design, housed within radiation protection walls; a 12-lead digital ECG machine; and an ultrasound scan area.
The examination area has a small wash room with toilet and wash basin too.
Air suspension
The vehicle is built on air suspension, has a back-up power generator, a UPS system, three air conditioners and a self-folding retractable ladder for entering the bus.
The cost of the project was nearly ₹2 crore.
“We designed the unit as per the requirements of the Kidwai Centre, which wants to use this for cancer screening and follow-up care amongst the rural population. They wanted the unit so designed that all basic investigations can be completed and a preliminary diagnosis delivered to a patient,” said P. J. Binu, senior engineer at C-DAC.
“In the next phase, they want to incorporate telemedicine facility also in this unit, for which the C-DAC has developed its own software with SNOMED CT-Dicom compatibility, so that the digital medical images and electronic medical records of patients can be transmitted using 4G connectivity,” he added.
The previous mobile medical units that were designed by C-DAC has been having a very successful run in the State.
Sanjeevani, a mobile unit with telemedicine facility, run by Malabar Cancer Care Society, an NGO, has been serving the rural population in five districts of north Kerala since 10 years.
Refurbished
“The vehicle was recently refurbished and a digital mammography unit added on,” Mr. Binu said. Two other mobile units, designed to deliver ophthalmology care services, has also been serving rural population in the State.