India gifts four BHISHM cubes to Ukraine

New Delhi: India has decided to gift four Bharat Health Initiative for Sahyog Hita & Maitri (BHISHM) cubes, a mobile hospital aimed at providing emergency medical care, to Ukraine, officials on Friday said.

Under the umbrella of Project Aarogya Maitri, a programme to provide essential medical supplies to developing countries as humanitarian assistance, the government has created the BHISHM initiative, which provides the means to deliver all basic facilities and equipment for providing emergency medical care in an easy to use and rapidly deployable manner, they noted.

The decision to gift four such cubes to Ukraine was taken prior to the visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Ukraine, which is locked in a protracted war with Russia.

The mobile hospital is made through packing all essential medicines and equipment in cubical boxes (15 inches each) in a well-organised manner, and arranged according to the types of injuries and medical issues that could be encountered in a war or natural disaster.

They said these mini cubes are then positioned on a framework that is adjustable, strong and permits multi-mode transport (by air, sea, land and drone). In fact, the mini cubes can be carried by a person as their maximum weight is 20 kg.

One cube, the officials said, has the ability to handle about 200 cases of diverse nature in emergency situations such as trauma, bleeding, burns, fractures, shock, apart from managing initial triage and classification.

It also has the ability to support basic surgeries and can also generate its own power and oxygen in limited amounts and duration, they added.