About Vaatsalya:
Vaatsalya is India’s first affordable hospital network focused on Tier II and Tier III towns. Their mission is to bring “Affordable, Accessible and Appropriate” healthcare services to under-served areas.
Vaatsalya provides affordable healthcare services to thousands of families across Karnataka through our hospitals in Hubli, Gadag, Bijapur, Mandya, Raichur, Hassan, Mysore, Gulbarga and Shimoga. They have plans to reach out to small towns across India.
Healthcare services in semi urban India
When we established the first Vaatsalya Hospital in Hubli in 2005, our idea was to provide access to affordable healthcare services in semi-urban and rural areas. The idea was borne out of our personal experiences that most healthcare faclities are in Urban areas, and in small towns and villages where most of us grew up or live in, there is huge demand for quality services which is not met. Naturally, being the first company in India to address this market, we faced a lot of challenges and surprises. When we started the company, the initial challenge was to identify likeminded doctors to work with, build our first model unit and to identify sources of funding before everything else. We were lucky that our first set of investors where professionals of Indian Origin who are settled abroad in the US, Europe and other parts of the world. These initial backers had the foresight to relate to the vision of Vaatsalya and also the desire to seed such an effort in India. Based on this initial funding, we were able to set up our first hospital and then work with some great doctors who are associated with us even today, with whom we evolved our business model. Once the first unit was up and running and we started seeing the acceptance of our model in the community, we put together a plan to expand our reach and established two more units in quick succession with support from Aavishkaar, which is a Social Venture Capital Fund. We have presence across Karnataka with 8 operational hospitals and 2 more in the pipeline. We provide direct services to about 20,000 customer every month and manage about 600 beds in our hospitals. We are the first company in India to focus exclusively on Tier II and III towns and have established our brand as a pioneer in this space. Based on our success in Karnataka, the plan is to scale up the network to 60 hospitals over the next two to three years. We have been lucky to work with the most dedicated and passionate group of doctors and medical staff. Initially it was a challenge to attract medical staff to our hospitals, but quickly we were able to establish our hospitals as a preferred place to work for medical and paramedical staff. We recruit locally as well as from leading hospitals, medical colleges and nursing institutes across the state and the country. Going forward, we will be building up capacity to train our medical staff as well. The question is not so much of whether the “low cost model” will work or not in India. Access to good quality healthcare is a basic right of every citizen in India. If we are not able to provide timely care where it is needed, we will not only create a huge inequity in healthcare, but the indirect costs on the society will be significant. Our mission is to create a model where healthcare is accessible, appropriate and affordable. While doing so, our focus is on keeping our costs low, so that we don’t add unnecessary bells and whistles to the hospitals, but focus on the quality of care that can be provided with no frills. Our Hospitals cater to middle and lower income families in Tier II and Tier III towns, with about 45% of our customers from surrounding villages. We believe that healthcare doesn’t necessarily have to be Hi-Tech, but should certainly be Hi-Touch where focus is on diagnosing and treating efficiently with a focus on prevention. We believe that over the next five years, the biggest growth in healthcare services will be in Tier II and III towns and Vaatsalya has established itself as a pioneer in this area. We are now in the process of partnering with insurance companies, tertiary care hospitals so we can expand the breadth and depth of services to our customers. No. As a private enterprise we have not sought any help from state or local governments. We are, however, in discussions with various state governments to replicate the Vaatsalya Network across India via public private partnerships and taking over of government hospitals. India today is the hotbed of entrepreneurship and we believe that this is the best of the times for starting up a company in India. There are tremendous opportunities ranging from telecommunications to basic services in India, and only now we have started to appreciate the power or enterprise in bringing sustainable change. While we can always complain that the environment is not conducive for entrepreneurship in India, in the last few years the entire ecosystem for startups has matured. We are in the process of building up a team now to expand to other states and potentially across India. By focusing on affordable services in Tier II and Tier III towns, we believe Vaatsalya can create significant impact on the health and wellbeing of small town India.
Your organization has done great work in building health services in rural and semi urban Karnataka. Please share with us the challenges you faced in setting up your enterprise.
How many hospitals have you set up?
What about issues of manpower? Do you get skilled doctors and paramedics? Are you training the locals? What is your HR strategy to sustain the hospitals?
Do you think the ‘low cost model’ is workable in India?
You are known as the ‘poor patients doctor’. What is the business model? How can you make your venture sustainable over a long term?
Have you received support from the local /state governments?
Is the Indian scenario suitable for entrepreneurship?
What are your future plans for Vaatsalaya- do you plan to replicate the model in other states?
