Primary healthcare centres and sub-centres are the backbones of India's rural healthcare system, servicing more than 70 per cent of India's population. The administration should ideally provide one medical sub-centre for every 5000 people and one primary health centre per 30,000 people. However, many of the existing primary health centres and sub-centres are in a state of neglect and haven't kept pace with India's increasing population.
Video Volunteers community correspondent Laxmi Kaurav, who also works as an ASHA worker, initiated a process to revive a sub-centre closed for more than two decades in the village of Barhad in Madhya Pradesh. It opened in 1987, functioned for ten years and was shut since then. As time passed, it became the den of anti-social elements and people feared going that side.
It was only after Laxmi got the local community together, created video reports documenting the state in which the sub-centre was, and sent written applications to the local authorities, that the sub-centre was refurbished and opened again.
The Barhad sub-centre is now a medical hotspot for more than 20,000 people from five of the nearby villages.
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