Without Taking a Single Paisa from the Govt, a Woman Doctor Develops India’s First Digital PHC

Manisha Mahajan, a 26-year-old doctor in Patonda village of Jalgaon district in Maharashtra has developed a fully digitized primary health centre, which has 24X7 WiFi connection and advanced medical equipment.

According to her, it is India’s first digital PHC.

Picture for representation only. Source: Twitter

Manisha was appointed as the medical officer of the PHC on December 1, 2015. After receiving donations from the villagers and the local MLA, she added money from her own pocket to digitize the place. She brought together the digital software that has been installed to make the PHC work paperless, CCTV cameras, WiFi connection, advanced medical equipment, and a well-equipped delivery room.

The PHC helps residents of 13 villages in the district get easy access to healthcare. It is equipped with the latest digital pulse oximeter, glucometer, apparatus to check blood pressure, thermometer, nebuliser, digital weight machine, etc. The digital software helps in proper registration of patients and also in saving digital health records. It provides smartphone alerts to parents for vaccination of children, while maintaining a real-time tab on the available medicines.

“Primary healthcare centre is the basic need of public health, but patients suffer because of pending work and lack of quality assurance. We have developed a digital PHC without using a single paisa from the government. I put in Rs 20,000, the staff contributed Rs 19,000, a zilla parishad member donated Rs 20,000, local MLA Unmesh Patil gave Rs 50,000 and remaining amount was donated by local villagers,” Dr. Mahajan told The Times of India.

Since this development, the PHC has witnessed a 30-40% rise in the number of patients at the Out Patients Department (OPD).

Recently, Dr. Mahajan presented her work before government officials as a model PHC that can be replicated in other villages of the state as well. She told The Asian Age that technical and software support from Vinod Parakh, a software developer helped her design the PHC.

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