CHENNAI: Health Minister Ma Subramanian, on Monday, flagged off SIMS Hospital’s Hello Doctor – Health on Wheels, India’s first 24×7 digital medical bus aimed at delivering medical services to rural and underserved sections. Designed as a fully paperless, end-to-end care facility, the bus offers on-the-spot consultations, health screenings, vaccinations and basic diagnostics, supported by doctors and nursing staff.

Patients can also access real-time teleconsultations with specialists and super-specialists. The bus enables early assessment and detection of non-communicable diseases in rural and marginalised populations with vaccination-on-wheels, one-stop preventive health check-ups and structured follow-up care integrated through a digital platform.

Subramanian said that such initiatives were vital to strengthening healthcare delivery. “Medical services must reach people where they live. This initiative reflects the future of healthcare, inclusive, preventive and accessible,” he said.

Under its Mission SIMS Village framework, the hospital will deploy the bus across villages, schools, colleges and industrial clusters.