Executive Summary: In the flood-prone and resource-scarce regions of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, healthcare is not just a service—it is a survival mechanism. Since its inception in 1987, Poorvanchal Gramin Vikas Sansthan (PGVS) has evolved from a small initiative providing medical assistance to the poor into a robust organization integrating Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) with Public Health. This article explores how PGVS delivers essential medical care, health camps, and wellness programs to the “last mile” communities.
The Genesis: A Health-First Mission
While PGVS is globally recognized today for its disaster management work, its roots are firmly planted in healthcare.Established in Gorakhpur, the organization began with a singular mission: to provide medical assistance to the poorestwithin the community who were excluded from the formal healthcare grid due to caste, geography, or poverty.
This foundational ethos continues to drive their “Health & Wellness” vertical, which now operates on a simple premise: Resilient communities require healthy individuals.
Core Healthcare Interventions
PGVS distinguishes itself by delivering healthcare not as charity, but as a systematic development intervention. Their work focuses on three critical pillars:
1. The “Camp Approach” to Essential Medical Care
Recognizing that rural villagers often cannot afford the travel and loss of daily wages to visit city hospitals, PGVS brings the hospital to the village.
-
General Health Camps: Regular multi-specialty camps provide free diagnostics and consultations for common rural ailments (skin infections, water-borne diseases, and respiratory issues).
-
Emergency Health Response: As a member of the NGO Task Force (NDMA), PGVS is often the first to set up medical relief camps during the annual floods in Eastern UP, preventing the outbreak of post-disaster epidemics like cholera and dengue.
2. Maternal and Neonatal Care (MNC)
The region faces some of the highest Maternal Mortality Rates (MMR) in India. PGVS addresses this through a targeted approach:
-
Pre-Natal & Post-Natal Support: They work with pregnant women and lactating mothers to ensure proper nutrition and medical check-ups.
-
Institutional Delivery Advocacy: By bridging the gap between the community and government schemes (like Janani Suraksha Yojana), they encourage safe institutional deliveries over risky home births.
3. Wellness Through WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene)
PGVS redefines “wellness” by focusing on prevention. Understanding that 80% of rural diseases are water-borne, their wellness programs are inextricably linked to WASH initiatives.
-
Sanitation Infrastructure: Construction of toilets and hand-washing stations to halt open defecation.
-
Hygiene Education: Behavioral change workshops that teach communities—especially children—the critical link between hygiene and long-term wellness.
Empowering the Underserved
PGVS specifically targets the most vulnerable demographics:
-
Dalits and Minorities: Ensuring health access reaches socially excluded hamlets.
-
Women & Children: Prioritizing nutritional support for the groups most susceptible to anemia and malnutrition.
-
Flood Victims: Providing psychosocial care and trauma counseling to families displaced by natural disasters.
The Strategic Edge: Health as Disaster Resilience
What makes PGVS unique is its integration of health into Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). They do not wait for a disaster to strike; they prepare the community’s health infrastructure beforehand.
-
Capacity Building: Training local volunteers (community health workers) to act as first responders.
-
Early Warning: Using community networks to disseminate health warnings (e.g., heatwave alerts or vector-borne disease outbreaks) before they become crises.
For nearly four decades, Poorvanchal Gramin Vikas Sansthan has demonstrated that healthcare is the bedrock of development. By combining immediate medical relief with long-term preventative wellness programs, PGVS is not just treating patients; it is building a healthier, more resilient Poorvanchal capable of weathering the storms of the future.