LABOUR MOBILE MEDICAL UNIT (MMU)

Labour Mobile Medical Units (MMUs) under NHM, which now includes both NRHM and NUHM, are a significant method to make public health care more accessible, especially to individuals living in rural, challenging, underserved, and unreachable places. Bringing healthcare to Labours is the goal of this technique, especially in rural, vulnerable, and underserved communities. Patient transfers are not the intention here.
MMU services are designed to meet the technical and service quality requirements for a primary health center by offering a suggested package of services under 12 thematic areas, including maternal health, newborn and infant health, child and adolescent health, reproductive health and contraceptive services, management of chronic communicable diseases, management of common communicable diseases, and basic OPD care (acute simple illnesses).

There is usually one vehicle per MMU, however, in the case of more than one vehicle:

• One vehicle is used for the transport of medical and para-medical personnel.
• The second vehicle is used for carrying equipment/ accessories, and basic laboratory facilities.
• The third vehicle carries diagnostic equipment such as X-rays, ultrasounds, ECG machines, and generators.

Since February 2009, all 385 NRHM blocks have been equipped with mobile medical units, which are run by PHC Patient Welfare Societies. Each Mobile Medical Unit visits remote villages on set days each month, covering at least 25 to 30 of them. Mobile Medical Unit services, in particular routine immunization and dropout immunization, are rigorously regulated. If the MMU team visits the village on the same day as the Village Health and Nutrition (VHN) day, the additional normal services (Antenatal Natal Care, Post Natal Care, Family Welfare Services, Lab services, Adolescent Care, Referral Services, and Counselling Services) are linked with the Village Health and Nutrition day.

On December 8, 2014, the Tamil Nadu government issued an order. Its purpose was to take care of the workers' medical needs on the job. According to the directive, the mobile medical care unit will hold frequent camps at the workplaces to detect early symptoms of illnesses and occupational diseases among the workers. Two doctors (a male and a female) are present in each unit, along with a nurse, chemist, lab technician, helper, and driver. The facility will provide screening tools for breast and cervical cancer, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and hypertension, in addition to providing maternity and postpartum counselling for the female labourers. These facilities are nevertheless utilized for fever camps and seasonal flu testing.

In order to reach people who live in hard-to-reach places and in communities that are cut off from mainstream services due to geography and climatic factors, mobile health services were developed.