Apollo Foundation’s hospital in Aragonda blends healthcare with education, nutrition and sanitation

The hospital at Aragonda has also expanded its specialised surgical services, completing 1,000 total knee replacement (TKR) procedures

What if improving the health of a village meant doing more than building a hospital, treating patients and performing surgeries? In Aragonda, a village in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district, an initiative that began with a 50-bed rural hospital has evolved into a community development model that links healthcare with education, nutrition, sanitation and preventive health.

Through its Total Health programme, Apollo Foundation is attempting to address the wider social determinants of health, with interventions spanning different stages of people’s lives, from maternal and child healthcare to youth development, women’s economic independence and elderly care.

The programme’s interventions include 1,200 antenatal and postnatal check-ups for new mothers, training in hygiene practices across 2,600 schools and industry-related and sports skills for more than 545 young people. It has also conducted over two lakh yoga sessions, alongside free screening and care for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), while more than 10.8 lakh meals have been served to elderly people through its geriatric nutrition centres.

Prathap C. Reddy, founder chairman of Apollo Hospitals Group, said the initiative reflected his belief that quality and affordable healthcare should reach every Indian, irrespective of where they lived. While the hospital initially brought modern medicine to his village, the larger vision was to create conditions in which people could lead healthier lives, he said. “Medicine can save lives, but to change the health of a generation, we must also change the conditions in which life is lived,” he added.

Alongside preventive and community healthcare, Apollo Hospitals Aragonda has also expanded its specialised surgical services, completing 1,000 total knee replacement (TKR) procedures. Established as a 50-bed hospital in 2000, it has served more than 1.67 lakh patients and performed over 12,000 surgeries in 26 years.

The knee replacement programme has grown from 100 procedures in 2019 to 500 in 2022 and 1,000 in 2026. “The 1,000 procedures have been completed without a single reported infection,” said Sangita Reddy, joint managing director of Apollo Hospitals.

Telemedicine was another early intervention. With a network of three telephone lines, Apollo connected specialists in cities with patients in rural areas, allowing doctors to examine CT scans and ultrasound images remotely. The initiative enabled specialists to guide local doctors in treating patients who otherwise would have had to travel to distant hospitals. She recalled that former President of US, Bill Clinton, witnessed a telemedicine demonstration from Aragonda during his visit to Hyderabad.

Preetha Reddy, executive vice-chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited said the organisation remained committed to narrowing the divide between rural and urban healthcare. “The ability to perform specialised procedures such as knee replacements in a village demonstrates the potential for such models to be replicated in other parts of the world,” she added.