Tamil Nadu

The Mobile Medical Unit (MMU) started in 2017 and supported by the Michelin Corporate Foundation, serves 31 villages and hamlets surrounding the Michelin India site in Thiruvallur district, Tamil Nadu. The specific objectives of the MMU are the prevention and management of non-communicable and chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis anaemia and malnutrition, respiratory disorders and fungal skin infections. Starting in 2022, the team has begun addressing mental health issues. The team uses the larger bus equipped with basic diagnostic facilities to serve villages that are accessible by wide roads, and uses a hired jeep to access the smaller villages with more vulnerable populations.

The personnel for the MMU includes a doctor, a physiotherapist, a nurse, a health worker co-ordinator, six community health workers, one village level worker, two health communication co-ordinators and a driver.

The community health workers are responsible for patient registration and follow–up, and health communication sessions. Basic medication is distributed free of cost. The unit has 7,500 registered patients and held 35,000 consultations since inception. There are weekly health communication sessions intended to answer questions, clarify doubts and provide information related to the causes, symptoms and management of the prevalent diseases in the area.

To encourage healthier eating habits, cooking competitions incorporating millets and using less spice and fats are held on rotation in the villages.

On the understanding that exercise contributes to physical and mental well-being, dance classes are conducted that are open to both young children and old, inviting in particular patients with diabetes and hypertension.

What follows is a paper written on the history of Mobile Medical Units in general and the FORRAD – Michelin unit in particular. It contains three sections as detailed below and provides an insightful narrative. Archana Venkatesh teaches History at Clemson, South Carolina.

Click here for MMU bus stops map

By Archana Venkatesh
Bringing healthcare to rural India has proved to be a challenge since the days of the British Raj. Public Health archives in any state are littered with references to reluctant doctors being forced to take up government jobs in rural government hospitals. A large part of this reluctance was the lack of potential for earnings through private practice in the evenings. However, many doctors also objected to the poor facilities in Primary Healthcare Centres in rural parts of the country – an objection that continues to haunt the placement of doctors in rural India today.Read more

Mobile Medical Units were originally developed for military use during the Second World War. However, they were quickly abandoned in favour of the more popular and effective Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) which also had the capacity to perform battlefield surgery before sending soldiers to better equipped hospitals further away from the front. The idea of an MMU, however, was not altogether abandoned. In fact, it caught on quickly among the civilian population in many countries, including the US, UK, Cuba and (you guessed it) India. Read more

A recent initiative by the Foundation for Rural Recovery and Development (FORRAD) is a Mobile Medical Unit, which addresses the medical needs of 31 settlements in the project area. This MMU is funded by the Michelin Corporate Foundation, Paris; and is staffed by a doctor, nurse, health worker, coordinator, and driver. There are six village level health workers who take responsibility for the villages on their roster. Read more