For V.T. Patil, 62, a dialysis session meant travel first and treatment next. The resident of Bijapur in Karnataka would travel 98 km up to three times a week to Sholapur in Maharashtra for the procedure that becomes mandatory when kidneys fail to function normally. Others from Bijapur make the 110 km trip to Miraj, again in Maharashtra, for a consultation with a nephrologist.

Not any more, after a new hospital came to town. A Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions-run hospital, set up in Bijapur in 2008, attends to some 10 dialysis procedures a day—a sizeable number for a medical facility its size. The scale underscores a fundamental market need that Vaatsalya is trying to address: seven of 10 Indians live in villages and semi-urban areas but have to make do with two of 10 hospitals and healthcare facilities in the country.

Vaatsalya is today arguably the first Indian hospital network in the country that is totally focussed on Tier II and Tier III towns. At the moment in Karnataka, it has hospitals in Hubli, Gadag, Bijapur, Mandya, Raichur, Hassan, Mysore, Gulbarga and Shimoga. To penetrate these markets, Vaatsalya is built as a low-cost model that promises affordable and accessible healthcare services.

Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions

FOUNDER: Dr Ashwin Naik

INNOVATION: Health-care delivery in Tier II and Tier III towns.

MODEL: A no-frills model that offers affordable and accessible healthcare services. It scans locations where it can be an early mover and have a huge catchment and be able to offer a better technology alternative locally.

More