Much has been said about government's decision to procure mobile clinics, but not much has been understood about what this actually means.

Critics call them 'motor vehicles' and question how government can afford to spend on these items when it is facing challenges in keeping its existing fixed infrastructure in stock, equipment and human resources. This is missing the point.

Clearly stated in the fifth National Development plan (FNDP) is the vision of the Ministry of Health to ensure that there is equity of access to affordable cost effective and quality health services that are as close to the people as possible.

In terms of access to service delivery the ultimate plan of the Ministry of Health is to ensure that every person is within five kilometres of a public health facility.

This has always been the plan, nothing has changed except the level of commitment to implement it.

Since even before independence, Zambia like many countries, has used two modules for health service delivery, one is by fixed health infrastructures which are hospitals, health posts, health centres and district and provincial hospitals.

The government continues to build infrastructure on a yearly basis.

The other is through mobile health services which includes the use of bicycles, motorcycles, motor vehicles, boats and aircraft.

The services provided by this modality are routine outreach services to distant communities complementing the hospitals and clinics, the management of outbreaks, like Cholera , Measles or other communicable diseases.

Management of trauma as in the case of accidents and other disasters like floods and fires.

The health services provided by mobile units have been in oral health, eye health, reproductive health, laboratory services, radiology services, theatre services, dispensary and out patients department follow ups which would be found in any out patient department of a health facility.

The implementation plan of mobile health services document prepared by the Ministry of Health notes that the United Nations (UN) in recognising the life saving value of mobile health services, bestowed upon Zambia the 2009 UN Public service award for the Itezhi Tezhi Integrated Community Mobile Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) and health services project.

While hospitals and clinics are fixed and can be seen, the services provided by mobile services are often over looked . It is the government s intention to ensure that both modes of services work together one modality does not substitute for the other.

While there are plans to build more fixed infrastructure, there are simultaneous plans to provide more mobile health services.

From a population of about 11.5m, only about three million people have easy access to hospitals or clinics.

That means that majority of Zambians (8.7m) are not getting medical services because they cannot easily access them. There is an urgent need therefore to bring services closer to the people.

The mobile clinic unitss are not just vehicles with medicine and staff. They are specialised , consisting of six vehicles.

This is for out patients, X rays, Mini theatres, laboratories and power supply and a dispensary stocked with medicines that are on the essential medicines list, and audio visual motor vehicle.

For example, if a clinic decides it is going to do outreach for cases requiring surgery, it will use the vehicle that has the theatre and all the components required to operate. If it's dental, then the medical personnel will use the dental vehicle.

This is a huge step from the present where clinics use ambulance or any kind of utility to conduct mobile health services. Apart from the vehicles being inappropriate, there is a lot of pressure on it as being the only means of transportation, it doubles as a transport vehicle and ambulance.

This means it breaks down frequently. However if a district has a mobile unit, the appropriate vehicles could be used exclusively for the services they were meant for.

The mobile clinics that have been ordered are six wheel drive which are better than four wheel drives and are specifically designed to go where there are no roads or on the pathways where ox drawn carts are used.

They also have a high clearance, meaning there is big distance between the chassis and the ground.

The medical equipment will be detachable from the vehicles meaning they can be used on their own. The mobile health units will also come with technical support in the form of staff.