Our work in Health seeks to make timely and affordable care a reality for everyone
While India’s vast public health system continues to play a critical role, access to timely secondary and specialist services remains uneven. The challenge is particularly acute in rural, Adivasi, remote and underserved urban areas, where people may have to travel long distances for appropriate treatment or struggle to afford it.
Across the country, an estimated 1,000 public-spirited hospitals operate through non-profit, charitable, or trust-based models. Many have deep roots in the communities they serve. Built around a commitment to ethical medical practice and service to society, these hospitals provide affordable, quality healthcare to people who are often left behind by mainstream systems.
These hospitals face multiple challenges. A hospital may have the commitment and clinical expertise to meet the needs of its community, but limited resources to expand its services, bring in specialists or build its capacity.
The Network Hospitals Programme seeks to build on the work of these hospitals through long-term partnerships. The focus is on strengthening what they already do well and helping them expand the services they provide to underserved and vulnerable communities.
Patient subsidies and referrals
At the heart of the Programme is a simple principle: No patient should be denied appropriate and quality healthcare because of an inability to pay.
The Programme is designed to complement, rather than duplicate, existing financing mechanisms. This ensures support for those who have no other means of meeting the cost.
Partner hospitals continue to identify patients who need financial assistance, while the Programme covers for outpatient, inpatient, and day-care services.
Financial support is provided to hospitals in advance rather than through a reimbursement model. This enables them to provide timely treatment without patients having to wait for approvals.
Affordability, however, is only one part of access.
Sometimes, a hospital may not have the specialised treatment a patient needs. Through the network, patients can be referred to another partner hospital. Since the referral takes place within the network, patients do not have to repeat the process of demonstrating financial need.
Connecting expertise
Public-spirited hospitals have considerable experience in serving their communities, but many still work in isolation. The network creates opportunities for hospitals to learn from one another and share expertise, resources, and experience.
Specialists support partner hospitals through periodic visits and telemedicine. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals can learn through onsite mentoring, online sessions, exposure visits, and practical clinical guidance.
The network also creates opportunities for students, young graduates, clinicians, and other healthcare professionals through internships, fellowships, volunteering, rural immersion, and jobs.
Building stronger institutions
The Programme is not only about helping someone access treatment today. It is also about strengthening the hospitals that communities depend on over the long term. This includes support for clinical services, systems, technology, and human resources, as well as stronger connections between hospitals.Referrals, mentorship, and shared learning enable knowledge and expertise to flow across the network.
The Programme therefore works at two levels: Helping people overcome financial barriers to treatment while strengthening partner hospitals so they can provide quality care over time. This long-term approach matters because stronger hospitals can do more for the communities they serve.
For the Foundation, this is one way of putting its belief in health as a public good into practice: Working with institutions that are already serving communities, helping them become stronger, and connecting them so that more people can access affordable, quality healthcare.
Key initiatives
Patient subsidies form one of the important pillars of the programme. Alongside this, the programme supports specialist services, inter-hospital referrals, clinical training, technology solutions, infrastructure strengthening, and shared learning.
Opportunities
The Programme offers doctors, nurses, students, researchers, and young professionals opportunities to learn and work with partner hospitals.
Partner hospitals
The Programme brings together hospitals committed to ethical, affordable, and quality healthcare, working together to improve care and expand access across diverse communities.
