India boat clinics bring healthcare to Assam islands

Fifteen mobile boat clinics are bringing doctors, medicines, vaccines and basic laboratory services to remote river islands in India's northeastern Assam state, where access to healthcare is limited.

Hundreds of thousands of people live on Assam's temporary river islands and sandbars, known as chars. The local government says the state has more than 2,000 such islands, many with limited health facilities and little or no staff.

The boat clinic network, called Akha, was launched in 2005 by the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research. With support from authorities and UNICEF, it now serves 13 districts and roughly 20,000 people a month, according to the UN agency.

Maternal and infant health are a main focus. Habibul Hoque, a medical officer at a boat clinic serving Nalbari, said the clinics mainly target pregnant women needing antenatal checks and newborn babies needing routine immunisation.

Official figures cited for Assam show 29 infant deaths and 34 under-five deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with national rates of 24 and 28. Maternal deaths in Assam stood at 125 per 100,000 live births, against 88 nationally.