This year has been marked by meaningful progress — from strengthening our workforce and training programs, to expanding partnerships and preventive initiatives. We are grateful to everyone who walked with us on this journey.
Period covered
April 1, 2025 → Present
What’s inside
Updates • Impact • Stories • Research
Key updates from our people and training programs.
Dr Surabhi from St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, has joined us for her rural posting
and will be serving her two-year commitment with us.
We are delighted to announce that T. Shanthi has been elected as our new
Nursing Superintendent by the team.
Sijitha and Kethi completed GNM, Ashwini finished DMLT and joined our staff, while Vijitha completed GNM and joined a hospital in Madurai. Sandhiya and Ramya completed GNM and joined us for a rotational internship — they will soon become part of our staff.
ANM 7th Batch
Our higher studies students excelled academically, with eight securing First Class and Babina earning a Distinction. Nandhana and Nishanti joined B.Pharm at JE College of Pharmacy, Trivandrum, and Aishwarya enrolled in Radiology and Imaging Technology at Jayasekaran College, Nagercoil.
To create local educational opportunities for boys, we revived the Bharat Sevak Samaj (BSS) course, with Vijith from Devala enrolling in the program.
Experiential programs that prepare healthcare professionals for rural service.
Our Rural Health Fellowship continues to inspire and equip young healthcare professionals to serve in underserved rural settings through hands-on exposure and community engagement.
This year, two fellows were part of the program, and we are now thrilled to be entering our second batch — building on the success of the first cohort and strengthening our commitment to rural healthcare development.
ASHWINI is one of the centres for the Health Equity Fellowship in partnership with the Azim Premji Foundation. It provides postgraduate doctors an opportunity to earn hands-on experience in their area of specialisation.
Dr Namita Chandy (MD Community Medicine) joined in September and will be involved with the community health department over 8 months.
Visits and learning exchanges that strengthen our systems and care delivery.
Ten students of Public Health, Development Studies and Social Work from reputed institutes like Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Azim Premji University and Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar had joined us for a 1 to 4 months period. They explored several aspects of Community and hospital-based healthcare in domains like nutrition, Mental Health, Care for Sickle Cell Disease in addition to exposure to routine practices.
A six-member ASHWINI team visited IQRAA Hospital to learn best practices in hospital IT infrastructure, governance, and security. Mrs Fareeda, Chief of IT, and her team shared insights into their well-structured IT systems, covering servers, networks, data management, and governance.The visit showcased the effective use of Linux, strong network redundancy, medical equipment integration, and disaster recovery practices. These learnings have given ASHWINI a clear roadmap to strengthen IT governance, security, and scalability as we enhance our healthcare systems.
As a first step of venturing into preventive oncology, a team from ASHWINI visited the Cancer Screening and Management initiative at Villupuram Government Hospital managed by Adyar Cancer Institute. The team consisted of Omana, Sudha and Ajith, visited the facility and were oriented to the project by Dr. Dhanuraj and were taken around the facility and to a nearby village to witness and learn from a well-run cancer screening, health education and further management through a cost-effective and technologically advanced intervention. The team at ASHWINI has started groundwork for establishing a similar program to combat oral, breast and cervical cancer at Gudalur.
Sankara Eye Hospital
KG Hospital
Our HR team recently visited Sankara Eye Hospital and KG Hospital in Coimbatore to understand their HR processes, systems, and use of technology. Both institutions warmly welcomed the team and generously shared insights into their practices and technological innovations. The visits were highly informative and added significant value to our team’s learning.
Key partnerships, upgrades and community access achievements.
Hospital expansion
100 beds
Planned scale-up supported through new grant.
Cataract screening
1,800 screened
Across 235 villages (3 years) • 570 surgeries facilitated.
Disability pensions
94 enrolled
End-to-end support from documents to approvals.
Azim Premji Foundation — 5-year grant approved
Strengthening our work in Gudalur: equipment upgrades, expansion to 100 beds, and launching a GNM school to train girls from local tribal communities.
Sankara Eye Hospital — cataract partnership
Three years completed in October: 1,800 screened across 235 villages, 570 surgeries facilitated. We thank the team for unwavering support.
Microland Foundation — scholarships + Point-of-Care scale-up
CSR funding for tuition scholarships for 15 ANM students; supporting the Point-of-care initiative for the second year, scaling to 6 Nurse Technicians across the catchment.
Brady Corporation — Maternal & Newborn Care
Support for strengthening maternal and newborn services.
Muthoot Group — medical facility upgrades
Generous contribution towards upgrading medical facilities (led by Shri George Alexander).
80 participants (predominantly women aged 18–65). Interactive sessions covered mental health, nutrition, and cancer awareness. Feedback was highly positive, with requests for camps twice yearly.
Microland Foundation has been supporting a novel Point-of-care initiative at ASHWINI, aimed at reducing access gaps to life-threatening medical conditions, for the second consecutive year, with a scale-up effort to expand the team to 6 Nurse Technicians from 2 and across the entire catchment area. To further improve accessibility pathways to villages, a smaller, sturdier 4-wheeler vehicle has been purchased and will soon be deployed alongside the community team’s continuing efforts to diagnose and refer sick patients who can’t come to the hospital on their own. The POC program is also giving us ample opportunities to improve the AVNI-Bahmni system to become a continuous reflective data system with self-learning modules for users and dashboards for reflective and quick decision-making. A learning management system is also being built for continuing training of the staff.
In Gratitude: Thanks to the generous support of Dr. J. Patel, we were able to acquire and register the land required for a 23-foot-wide access road, a mandatory requirement for the hospital. We deeply appreciate his unwavering support and generosity.
Moments that reflect courage, care, and community solidarity.
"More than 95% of the 11 million burns that occur annually happen in low-resource settings". The cost of treating burns at approximately 8000 per day (as per Indian Studies) is cost and labour intensive, resulting in high mortality and functional morbidity. 8 patients with major burns and 13 patients with minor burns were treated this year. Surgeries including early burns, excision grafting, contracture release and collagen dressing. The cornerstone of the treatment being effective nutritional rehabilitation using locally procurable eggs, groundnuts and millets along with effective nursing care for burns bath and physiotherapy. Our expenditure on burns this year was ₹5,56,593 of which close to 40% was covered by Govt. Health Insurance and remaining through donations.
A 36year old mother of two sustained flame burns 13years back The natural course of healing resulted in a cosmetic deformity causing profound psychological distress and functional morbidity. She withdrew completely from social interactions, including with her spouse. She became dependent on her mother for even basic daily activities and self-care as she couldn't see straight and lift her arms due to burns contracture in neck and axilla. After extensive counselling and reassurance, she consented to undergo burn contracture release and skin grafting at our hospital— procedures largely unfamiliar and inaccessible in her remote community. Her recovery was gradual and required a multidisciplinary approach. The peri-operative period involved daily counselling sessions to rebuild confidence, physiotherapy and nutritional rehabilitation. With persistent training, our scrub nurses trained from within the community are now able to harvest a skin graft and suture as adept as a plastic surgeon.
A month later, she returned smiling — sharing that she had resumed work, a moment of joy unseen for years.
A patient with sickle cell disease, who has faced multiple health challenges including chronic pain, stroke risk, lung and kidney issues, and infections, miraculously survived a pulmonary embolism during her delivery. Recently, severe hip pain from avascular necrosis limited her mobility and daily life as a homemaker and mother. Binu Kurien, a long-time volunteer orthopedician at our hospital from St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, recommended a total hip replacement. As this was a sudden situation and the surgery costs exceeded ₹2 lakhs, timely and generous support from Mr. Harish (ARTMA Foundation) and Dr. Binu made the procedure possible. She underwent surgery successfully and is now recovering, looking forward to a pain-free life. Stories like hers, fueled by courage and the support of inspiring individuals, continue to motivate and drive us forward.
She underwent surgery successfully and is now recovering — looking forward to a pain-free life.
Work that strengthens rural care through evidence and innovation.
The origins of this book trace back to a research award from the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Centre for Global Health Delivery–Dubai, awarded to one of the editors, Dr. Nandakumar Menon, for his paper titled “Task-based Credentialing for Spinal Anesthesia: An Innovative Approach to the Specialist Workforce Crisis in Rural India”. This grant facilitated collaboration among the editors, the teams at PGSSC (Program in Global Surgery and Social Change), Harvard Medical School, and ASHWINI Gudalur Adivasi Hospital, leading to a randomized controlled trial. The study compared the performance of spinal anesthesia administered by trained medical officers with that of conventionally trained anesthesiologists across three rural Indian hospitals: ASHWINI Gudalur Adivasi Hospital, Tribal Health Initiative (Sitilingi), and Jan Swasthya Sahyog (Bilaspur).
At the heart of this handbook are the training modules developed by two of the editors, Craig McClain and Dr. Wesley Rajaleelan, for the four medical officers involved in the study. It was at the insistence of these medical officers that these modules were compiled into this comprehensive resource.
We were honoured to receive the Nalam Award 2025 from News 7 on 8 November 2025. This recognition of our contributions to community welfare and healthcare was truly inspiring for our team.
We are heartbroken to share the news of the passing of our beloved Dr. Premila Nair on a mentor, teacher, friend, and constant well-wisher to so many of us.
Her life itself was a beautiful lesson. Compassion, dedication, and simplicity were the pillars of her ever-joyful spirit, and she inspired everyone she met to live with grace and kindness. Her warmth, wisdom, and unwavering encouragement left a lasting impression on all whose lives she touched.
During her stay here from 1995,“P.G.P”, as she was affectionately called, was instrumental in training many of our health animators and doctors in the care of her beloved children.We will always remember her as a role model of humility, professional devotion, and quiet strength.
Though we deeply mourn her loss, we take comfort in knowing that her influence is an irreplaceable legacy that lives on through us. We trust she is at peace now, in a better place.
Our priorities for 2026.
In 2026, we aim to strengthen healthcare services with improved diagnostics. We will boost in-house capacity-building, expand educational opportunities, encourage active community participation, carry out village-level surveys and door-to-door screenings for early detection, and work with government systems to ensure the community accesses all benefits. With these steps, we envision a brighter future for the tribal communities.
With Gratitude: We extend our heartfelt thanks to all our donors and volunteers,big or small,whose generosity and dedication make our work possible. Every contribution of time and support helps transform lives, strengthen healthcare, and build a brighter future for our community.
Your contributions help us continue delivering quality healthcare to those in need.
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