World’s first Lifeline Hospital train reaches Tripura, over 1000 patients attended in two days

Lifeline Express is a train healthcare service which was set up as a joint initiative of Impact India Foundation, Indian Railways and Ministry of Health in 1991.

Over a thousand patients from far-flung rural hamlets of North Tripura district have been treated at Lifeline Express, the world’s first hospital train, since Tuesday at Churaibari Railway Station of North Tripura district.

They have received 400 patients on the first day. It is 4 PM now and we have already received 600 patients. The idea behind the train is to provide diagnostic, medical and advanced surgical treatment to persons with disabilities and reach out to inaccessible rural areas that lack medical services

Churaibari Assistant Station Superintendent Prasanta Bhattacharjee informed that the train arrived in Tripura on December 16. It has started offering treatment since Tuesday and would continue its services till January 06 next year.

Lifeline Express was initially supposed to make base at Kumarghat railway station in Tripura. But it was routed to Churaibari due to absence of siding line and problems of Food Corporation of India (FCI) work at Kumarhat.

The hospital train has conducted 1.30 lakh surgeries and treated over 10 lakh patients in its Out Patient Department (OPD) across 184 districts in 20 states of the country till now.

Its services were opened up at Churaibari on Tuesday by North Tripura district magistrate Raval Hamendra Kumar.