Game Changer in Healthcare Services Delivery

The Majority of people believe that health services should be offered in a fixed/static building. This notion is ingrained because that is what people have grown up knowing and seeing.

The mention of mobile health clinics invokes various emotions dependent on the people groups; for those in urban areas where there are clinics and hospitals, it would be a raw deal to be told to access services in a mobile clinic while to one in a remote place with no facilities, a mobile clinic would be a Godsent.

A mobile health clinic is a vehicle e.g. a bus, trailer, or container that is innovatively modified and equipped with facilities and medical personnel needed to provide certain health services. The services and medical personnel are dependent on factors such as the size of the clinic and the target population. Services available can include doctor consultation, laboratory, pharmacy, and triage.

Commenting on the use of mobile health clinics, Jayesh Saini stated that the main purpose of using them is to increase accessibility to healthcare especially in under-reached regions and populations so as to have improved and increased health outcomes. He pointed out that this is very successful amongst pastoralist communities who are normally mobile and having fixed facilities proves economically challenging as the pastoralist abandon them for greener pastures for their livestock and can take months before returning to the site. He said with mobile clinics, it is easy to follow the movement patterns and provide the necessary health attention. This, he said helps in curbing the spread of diseases in cases where there is an outbreak amongst them. In Kenya and African context, this can be ideal during religious gatherings, in education facilities, during market days, or “barazas” organized by local leaders, peer groups, and change agents where large populations gather and can access the services, whether at a fee or for free depending on the party issuing the clinics. Also, this helps reduce the disparities in healthcare delivery that are common between different groups of people, which in turn aid in reduced healthcare expenditure amongst the target populations. A case in point where mobile clinics have been used in Kenya is during the beyond zero campaigns and in reaching areas where there have been outbreaks of cholera. In countries like the USA, mobile clinics have been used successfully for years to deliver pediatric primary healthcare amongst underprivileged populations. 

Jayesh opines that mobile health clinics can also be used in regions where there is a specific chronic condition of a reasonable population that have constraints in reaching health facilities – either because of distance, transport issues or the severity of the conditions. This can also be a great channel for carrying out preventive healthcare and screening of diseases amongst special needs people such as the poor, people in informal settlements, street families (homeless) with no access to insurance covers or financial ability for such services.

He believes that these clinics are a fast, innovative way of reducing the disparities while addressing issues that are urgent and of proportionate magnitude and should be encouraged even as more and more people become aware of their human rights to health and are demanding for it. While resources are being sort for more permanent solutions like fixed health facilities, health issues can be addressed.

Pointing at the constraints that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought, with people being afraid of accessing services in facilities, Jayesh says the mobile clinics are a good alternative especially for those with known chronic diseases and under management protocols as they can be accessed from the comfort of their home areas or homes for continuity of their health services. The government can also consider the use of mobile clinics to move into various parts of the country offering the vaccines so as to cover a broad spectrum of the population. He also put a disclaimer that the clinics are not a panacea in themselves and are only to be used as a temporary measure as more permanent solutions are made. He noted that they mobile clinics are limited in the services they can provide and the population therefore that can be catered for in a specified time before the clinic needs refurbishing, restocking and re-assessment.