Haryana Services

Arpana Hospital is a 130 bed facility with six disciplines, providing affordable health care and a training and referral base for health care and development work in over 60 villages with a population of about 150,000.

Objective : To make modern health care available and provide good trained staff with the latest equipment and facilities at affordable rates. Subsidised or free treatment is provided to those below the poverty level, whilst we try to move towards sustainability through charging private patients to subsidise the needy.

In little settlements of Karnal District, Haryana, which do not even have their own panchayat or village council, live the marginalised people of rural India, the landless labourers, who toil ceaselessly simply to exist. After decades of intervention by Arpana, there is a marked difference in the quality of their lives. Funds channelled by Arpana have assisted village groups to prepare brick lined lanes and drains for better sanitation. Midwives trained by Arpana examine expectant mothers, monitoring their progress closely. Routine births are handled at home, whilst complicated cases are referred to the Arpana Hospital.

Arpana's emphasis on the empowerment of women has ensured sustainable health care in village communities with minimum intervention. Members of women's groups take responsibility for pregnant women in their neighbourhoods, ensuring antenatal checkups and safe delivery, and immunizations. They are also educated by Arpana's health workers in nutrition, health and childcare, and learn to teach mothers how to prepare a nutritious and tasty diet for their children.

Women are gradually moving away from the second class citizenship they have experienced for generations in strongly patriarchal societies. Empowerment is becoming a reality through women's collective savings, credit access, small enterprises, and collective action for health and well being as well as responsibility for village development.