The Lifeline Express, the world’s first hospital train

For twenty-five years, the Lifeline Express has been traveling into deep  India to bring health services to millions of sick Indians who are in need of surgery, treatment and diagnostics. 

This hospital train is the only hope of cure in empty of health centers. The train, is the flagship of Impact India Foundation, in partnership with the Indian Railways. For months, the members Impact India Foundation had prepared this mission.

In this meticulously orchestrated organization, the best specialists in the country (Delhi, Mumbai), all of which are volunteers, do not hesitate to travel thousands of kilometers to participate in missions and bedside care.

In April 2016, in the sweltering heat, the Lifeline Express joined for four weeks the heart of Gondia. Gondia is a city of 176 000 inhabitants whose the economy is mainly based on the rice crop and tobacco. 15-hour train ride northeast of Bombay, the city is one of the poorest in the state of Maharashtra. 

Lifeline Express offers services like restoration of sight through cataract operations, correction of clefts through surgery, dental services for hundreds of people.  Others will see for the first time epilepsy’s specialists which they will learn existence. Patients come from surrounding villages where they can not have treatment or in very poor conditions. 

Lifeline Express has become a model for transfer of appropriate technology to other countries to set up similar projects in China, Central Africa and river boat hospitals in Bangladesh and Cambodia.

The medical train of India published on Roads & Kingdoms

A passage of hope on India’s hospital train published on Aljazeera