‘Our Main Aim Is To Encourage Patients To Reach Out To Institutional Care'

Ajoy Khandheria, Founder, Gramin Healthcare (GH), in an interaction with Prathiba Raju, explains how GH model will help to improve healthcare delivery in villages and make it economically viable.

- Prathiba Raju

How did the concept of Gramin Healthcare evolve? How do you think it will help to change the rural healthcare scenario in the country? 

Gramin Healthcare (GH) aims to provide institutional healthcare to the underserved. Mostly, the underserved in rural areas are farmers. We wanted to provide them with consistent quality care and this passion made us to develop the concept of GH. We were fortunate to get a lot of positive feedback from patients which helped us in our quest to deliver consistent healthcare in rural India. 

We want to further enhance our model with a insurance or packaged primary care service for rural India, which will encourage them to take advice and thus promote wellness. Our main aim is to encourage patients to reach out to institutional care such as ours instead of marginal medical care from existing providers who may or may not be qualified.

Can you elaborate on the partnership with the cooperative fertiliser major IFFCO? 

Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO), is a partner to our healthcare initiative as well as a shareholder. This partnership has allowed us to scale up fast. 

GH has a shop in shop within IFFCO bazaar. This has increased the patient trust and helped the patient acquisition at a lower cost. IFFCO also provides us corporate governance and great insights on the behaviour and needs of the farmer.