DS Group nurtures its responsibility as a committed corporate citizen by regarding CSR as an integral part of its business objective. The Company has been working all over India, on a wide range of CSR programmes for community development in areas of education, health, safe drinking water, restoration of heritage structures and other important buildings and self reliance for tribal & ethnic communities. Disaster relief and employment of locals is also high on the company’s CSR agenda.
The Company believes that economic empowerment of individuals transforms them into powerful agents of social change. The rubber tapping training programme at Tripura teaches the local and tribal farmers, the scientific methodology of rubber tapping, elevating their status from farm helpers to accredited Rubber tappers, hence uplifting their socio- economic levels considerably.
DS Mobile Clinic
Health & Medical Services form a key aspect of the scope of community development activities of the Group. DS Mobile Clinic is the Group’s initiative to address this need of the communities at large.
In India, about 75% of health infrastructure, medical man power and other health resources are concentrated in the urban areas. Yet, there are pockets in these urban areas which are deprived of the basic health and medical facilities. To address the concern, DS Group decided to start DS Mobile Clinic, in the Delhi NCR region.The program was launched in April 2012.
The success and experience of the program in the remote areas of the North Eastern region of the country, where medical facilities are very inadequate, has given impetus to replicate the same pan India starting with the Delhi NCR region. This program has been running effectively in Assam, Tripura & Meghalaya for the last 4 years.
The objective of the program is to provide quality health services to the urban slums. DS Mobile Clinics offer free consultancy at doorstep in the slums, where people are ignorant about the basic hygiene and disease prevention.
The initiative in Delhi NCR is being executed in association with PHD Rural Development Foundation, the CSR arm of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. A total of 120 identified slums will be covered in this phase.
A well equipped medical van, with a qualified Doctor and trained medical staff provide basic services like consultation, medicine and referral, all free of cost. Critical cases are however referred to the nearby hospitals.
Modus Operandi
The first step is to identify an appropriate location to organize the mobile clinic. The team then coordinates with the headman and leading members of the community to ensure safe and approachable location for the clinic.
Before organizing the mobile clinic, the team disseminates information about the mobile clinic in the community. The announcement contains the location for the clinic, timing and available services.
The following day mobile clinic is organized, where the certified doctor examines the patients and provides them with the necessary counseling. After counseling, the team also distributes basic medicine to the patients as prescribed by the doctor. In case of need for specialized medical attention, the patients are referred to nearby hospitals and guided for the further treatment.
After the mobile clinic, the project team coordinates with the headman of the community to organize follow up camps. Every month, 30 mobile clinics will be organized to examine and treat more than 3500 patients in Delhi NCR.
” Since the launch of the program in April this year in Delhi NCR, 23991 patients have been examined and provided with free medication in 230 camps conducted so far. The response has been fabulous.