Arogyam

Access to healthcare is one of the primary factors that contributes to a healthy community, yet this is a distant dream for many villages in India. The inhabitant tribes of the villages in Araku valley and Korraput, Orissa are one such group who face extreme barriers to healthcare. The villages of the Valley are widespread over a few hundred square kilometers into mountains and valleys with a very disproportionate share of healthcare facilities, available only at far-off locations. In absence of transportation facilities, the access is even further curtailed. As a result, a commute to the hospital for a villager is an entire day exercise, often compromising on his daily wages. The tribes have to time and again travel through adverse weather conditions, sometimes through bad roads and sometimes on foot to healthcare centers, which may or may not be equipped to attend to them at that time. When severe problems arise, the tribes sometimes have to rush to nearby cities and towns. Not always does a patient in need of healthcare reach in time to get appropriate treatment, unfortunately succumbing to fatalities or irreversible adverse health effects.

This lack of organized delivery of healthcare and poor preventive healthcare place the tribes at a high degree of vulnerability. The Arogyam program aims at causing a positive intervention to this aspect of the tribal living, by providing village healthcare or Arogyam workers who can attend to the healthcare needs of the villagers in a timely manner