For decades, India’s rural public health infrastructure has suffered from an acute shortage of specialist doctors. Taluk hospitals, which are meant to serve as the first point of referral in the government system, have often functioned without anaesthetists, surgeons, or paediatricians. Patients requiring even moderately complex care have had to travel long distances, sometimes over 100 kilometres, at great cost, risk, and delay. In Gangavathi, pregnant women face childbirth with fear, praying that labour and delivery will present no complications. Those who did experience complications were transferred from the local taluk hospital to distant cities — and not all survived the long journey. It is no wonder, then, that many avoid seeking care from public healthcare facilities.

To address t

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