Early cancer screening
Breast examination and cervical screening following WHO guidance, with screen-and-treat for precancerous lesions where protocols allow.
Initiative 01 · Mobile hospitals
Treat on the Street: the hospital that comes to you.
A programme model for fleets of mobile hospitals that take early screening, maternal and child health, telemedicine and chronic disease care to the communities farthest from a hospital.
The challenge
Distance is a diagnosis no one should receive.
Cervical cancer can be prevented. Breast cancer found early is usually survivable. Most maternal deaths can be avoided with timely care. Yet across sub-Saharan Africa, women are too often diagnosed late, or not at all, because the nearest hospital is a day’s travel and a day’s wages away.
Building a hospital in every community is not possible. Bringing the hospital’s most important services to every community is.
18 of 20
70%
1.55
The model
Four services on every route.
Each mobile unit is a fully equipped clinic, staffed by trained clinicians, scheduled on predictable routes and linked to referral hospitals for anything it cannot treat on the spot.
- Referral hospital
- Mobile hospital on its route
- Community visit point
- Telemedicine link to specialists
- Referral with a booked appointment
Maternal and child health
Antenatal visits, risk screening, postnatal and newborn checks, immunization support and nutrition counselling.
Telemedicine
Live links to specialists, so a woman in a rural district can be seen by a gynaecologist or oncologist without travelling.
Chronic disease care
Detection and follow-up of hypertension, diabetes and other long-term conditions, with medicines and monitoring.
The patient journey
From the village square to treatment, without getting lost.
- 01
Mobilize
Community health workers and local leaders announce visits and invite those most at risk.
- 02
Screen
Registration, consent and screening on board, recorded in an electronic record.
- 03
Treat or refer
Treatment on the spot where possible; a booked referral with transport support where not.
- 04
Follow up
Results returned, follow-up visits scheduled on the next route, and no one forgotten.
Deployment
From a pilot region to national coverage.
Assessment and route design
Population, disease burden, roads and referral facilities mapped to plan routes and fleet size.
Units, equipment and systems
Vehicle and clinical specifications, procurement, maintenance contracts and the patient record system.
Workforce
Recruitment and training of nurses, midwives, clinicians, drivers and community health workers.
Pilot launch
A first region served, measured against agreed indicators and improved.
Scale and transfer
More units and regions, then a full handover to national teams, with our support as needed.
Planning tool
How many units does a region need?
Move the sliders to see how fleet size, operating days and daily capacity translate into screening coverage, measured against WHO’s target of 70% of women screened.
Eligible women reached within five years88%
- Screenings per year
- 88,000
- Time to screen every eligible woman once
- 5.7 years
- Units needed to reach 70% within five years
- 8
Illustrative planning figures. Real capacity depends on routes, staffing, consumables, follow-up and national protocols; we establish them in a needs assessment.
Plan it with us
Safeguards
Built to be trusted, and to last.
- Clinical governance
- Protocols aligned with national guidelines and WHO recommendations, supervised by qualified clinicians.
- Consent and privacy
- Informed consent for every service, and patient data stored under national law.
- Local workforce
- Teams recruited and trained in-country, with career paths that keep skills in the health system.
- Sustainable financing
- Costed for operations and maintenance, not just purchase, and blended from public, insurance and partner sources.
Partnership
Who we deliver it with.
Treat on the Street is delivered in partnership. National authorities set priorities and own the programme; we design, deploy and manage it with them.
- Ministries of health and public health agencies
- Offices of first ladies and national foundations
- Development partners and multilateral agencies
- Referral hospitals and universities
- Private sponsors and corporate foundations
Frequently asked questions
Is Treat on the Street operating today?
Treat on the Street is a complete programme model that we design and adapt with each government and its partners. Deployment begins once a country partnership, financing and national approvals are in place.
What happens when a woman needs treatment the unit cannot provide?
Every route is linked to referral hospitals. The patient leaves with a booked appointment, her record travels with her, and the programme follows up to make sure she arrives.
Who owns the vehicles, the equipment and the data?
That is agreed with each government. Our default is national ownership of the programme’s assets and data, with Chia Dex responsible for design, deployment and, if desired, management.
Bring Treat on the Street to your communities.
We present the full programme model, costs and deployment plan in a confidential briefing, in English or in French.
