A government school in Murshidabad, located far away from the nearest hospital, has set up a medical unit on its premises for its students.

The two-bed medical unit at Laskarpur High School, about 50km from Behrampore, has an oxygen concentrator, an oxygen cylinder, a blood pressure measuring machine and a pulse oximeter.

“The nearest hospital is 8km from the school,” said headmaster Mohammad Jahangir Alam. “So we have set up this medical unit on our premises so that any student who feels unwell can get preliminary medical aid immediately."

The unit, which was opened in September, is run by a matron and a teacher of the coeducational school who has been trained in using the equipment.

“There were occasions when students felt unwell, some complained of breathlessness. They had to be rushed to Krishnapur Rural Hospital in the Lalgola block, around 8km away. That is our nearest hospital,” said headmaster Alam.

"At times students were in such a condition that they could not sit on a bike. We had to wait for a four-wheeler or an e-rickshaw to take them to the hospital. That took a lot of time."

In the recent past, a schoolgirl complained of breathlessness. Her oxygen saturation had dropped to 65 per cent, an alarming level, by the time she could be taken to Krishnapur Rural Hospital.

“The girl was on oxygen support at the hospital, where she had to stay for a couple of days,” Alam said.

"Now that we have an oxygen concentrator, we can provide immediate relief to a student complaining of breathlessness before taking him or her to hospital. We also have a pulse oximeter. We can check the oxygen saturation before administering oxygen to a student. Not all students who look sick require oxygen, but some do.”

There were incidents when two or three students felt unwell at the same time, the headmaster said.

“That's a stressful situation for the teachers because they don’t know what to do. Once, three of our girls were taken ill simultaneously. It was raining heavily that day. Taking all the students to hospital in such a condition was difficult. It was then that we decided to set up a medical unit on our campus."

After the Covid pandemic, the awareness about the utility of a pulse oximeter and an oxygen concentrator has gone up.

“Earlier, we did not know that there was a handy machine with which we can check our oxygen saturation," said a teacher at the school.