Access to healthcare in India's forgotten villages

Lack of access to healthcare in rural Uttar Pradesh and Bihar

• 80% of people live in rural villages and 40% live below the poverty line.
• Low priority and low budgets allocated to healthcare mean that poor people in these states have no health facilities to go to when they fall ill.
• They either do not seek care or seek care from poor quality and mostly unqualified but inexpensive sources, and fall into debt to meet the resultant expenses. 

Limited Health Resources

• The WHO reports that in India 40.8% of health workers work in rural areas where 72.2% of the population resides
• This discrepancy in resources creates cracks in the system that the Covid-19 pandemic has only widened.

Telehealth can be utilized to bring care and advice digitally to these communities, facilitated by a Community Health Entrepreneur as a first responder.

Community Health Entrepreneurs

• women from marginalized communities, living and working in rural villages
• lead health education and behavior change
• facilitate access to existing village level primary health resources and preventive services.
• drive demand by referring people to health facilities, encouraging vaccinations, and accompanying individuals to ensure they get the correct treatment
• earn an income.

CHEs can act in the same capacity as first responders and facilitators to connect members of their communities to qualified health professionals through a tele-health app in order to create access to services that are otherwise unavailable.

By training 50 Community Health Entrepreneurs as first responders and telehealth facilitators, quality, affordable and accessible healthcare will reach 125,000 individuals, generate positive health outcomes and create more resilient communities.