Gudalur Adivasi Hospital

The Gudalur Adivasi Hospital was established in 1990 by ASHWINI (Association for Health Welfare in the Nilgiris), a registered charitable society (TN Registration 51/1990) owned and operated by the Adivasi community of the Gudalur and Panthalur taluks of Nilgiri district.

The Adivasi communities in this area belong to 4 tribal groups – Paniya, Bettakuruma, Kattunayakan & Mullakurumba designated as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups. Over 90 per cent of them work as agricultural wage labour on farms and estates.

These communities have been historically exploited and their socio-economic and health conditions are poor. They live in over 320 hamlets spread across two taluks of the Gudalur District, many with no road access. With the intensive work of ASHWINI  there has been much improvement and many unnecessary deaths have been avoided.

ASHWINI’s health program has a three tier structure:

Village level health volunteers (HVs)
Health animators (HAs) or Community Health Nurses working out of 8 area centres.
A secondary care hospital, the Gudalur Adivasi Hospital (GAH).

There has always been a stress on the community program and a highly participatory process has been implemented. Over 200 health volunteers are actively involved in the healthcare delivery. These are mostly Adivasi women who volunteer their time for the work.

They undergo training in basic maternal and child care and encourage mothers to come forward for antenatal check-up, growth monitoring of children and immunization. They act as lay counsellors, ensure continuity of care for patients with chronic diseases including mental illness and support the HAs to implement screening for diseases like TB in the community. They often accompany patients to the hospital in order to boost their confidence.

The 8 area centres are each manned by 2 fulltime nurses who work as ‘bare foot doctors’. They triage the tribals visiting the centre, dispense medicines for chronic diseases, refer sick patients to GAH, monitor antenatals and <5s growth and go on village visits.

The Hospital has 50 beds and is staffed by seven full time doctors as well as visiting specialists. It has a well-equipped labour room, 2 operation theatres, a blood bank with provision for components separation, a laboratory capable of performing all the common tests, early learning/disability centre, physiotherapy, endoscopy, X-ray and ultrasound facilities, classrooms for training 20ANM nursing students. The Hospital operates 24X7 and is able to care of most of the health needs of the Adivasi community.

For more details please visit www.ashwini.org