Out Patient Clinic

JSS provides outpatient care to the residents of rural Chhattisgarh in multiple settings, including at our referral center in Ganiyari and multiple subcentres located throughout the region. In all these settings, we strive to provide holistic, rational and affordable health care to a patient population often marginalized by history and society.

At the referral hospital in Ganiyari, Outpatient Department (OPD) visits occur every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, ranging in focus from Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, General Surgery, and Internal Medicine. On OPD days, approximately 250 to 350 total patients are cared for, many of whom have waited for up to 48 hours prior to clinic to reserve a spot in the queue. After being seen, patients have various laboratory and imaging tests performed and then return to see their medical provider. At that time, the next appropriate steps in a patient’s care are performed, whether writing for additional tests, referrals, clinching a diagnosis or prescribing medicines. This innovative approach (where each patient can see a health care provider multiple times on a clinic day) attempts to guarantee that our patients get as much done in as little time as possible, respecting the fact that many have traveled from greater than 250 kilometers away to be cared for and may have slept for one or two nights on the hospital grounds. In a year, the OPD clinics perform approximately 50,000 such discrete patient encounters.

In addition to OPD days, a separate tuberculosis care clinic is run on Tuesdays and a mental health clinic on Thursdays. Much like OPD clinics, tuberculosis and mental health patients can access their health care provider (and the health care infrastructure at Ganiyari) multiple times on a clinic day.

Two days a week, JSS doctors, nurses and lab technicians travel to one of three subcentres to perform mobile clinics in remote communities. These mobile clinics retain many of the laboratory testing capabilities and medications available through the referral hospital. At the subcentres, individuals can access both acute and chronic care for a number of conditions and, if necessary, be referred to the referral hospital at Ganiyari for a higher level of medical care.

Patients seen at Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS) clinics, 2010-2013

Value in parenthesis represent percentages.