When she was young, Amma dreamed of building a hospital where poor people could have access to high-quality healthcare in an atmosphere of love and compassion. In 1998, she built it. That was when the Amrita Institute for Medical Sciences in Kochi, Kerala first opened its doors. As of December 2020, Amrita Hospital and the allied medical institutions of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math have provided completely free treatment to 5.1 million patients and subsidized care to another 300,000 patients—a total of US$104 million (₹764 crore) in charitable medical care.
Beyond institutions, Amma’s healthcare work reaches out to people who would not otherwise have access, especially in impoverished villages in rural India. Some of the patients live in isolated areas and had never even met a doctor until medical teams from the Ashram arrived. To strengthen connections, projects focus on leveraging technology to remotely monitor health issues, to enable early diagnosis of diseases, and to utilize research-supported interventions.
Amrita Hospital in Kochi, Kerala is a 1,300-bed hospital that opened in 1998 and is now home to 27 Specialty Departments and 16 Centers of Excellence. These include innovative areas such as comprehensive women’s healthcare, robotic surgery, and telemedicine. The hospital’s focus is to provide charitable care to those who would not be able to afford treatment otherwise, while at the same time remaining up-to-date with the latest technologies. This commitment to affordable, quality care has attracted a dedicated team of highly qualified professionals from across the world. Amrita Hospital also runs as a medical school for doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals. In 2021, the Govt of India’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rated it as the country’s sixth best medical school.
Amrita Hospital in Haryana is a 2,000-bed hospital set to open in August 2022 in Faridabad, one of Delhi’s surrounding cities. It will carry the same strong charitable commitment to provide quality care to the poor as well as being a state-of-the-art facility. An entire block will be dedicated to original research that focuses on low-cost healthcare solutions, and Amrita Hospital Faridabad will also be a teaching hospital. The facilities will include a highly specialized, multidisciplinary children’s hospital, with all specialties and subspecialties for complete mother-child care. This is a feature that many hospitals in India lack, as some private facilities do not see maternal care as financially sustainable.
Amrita Hospital uses mobile and satellite technology to connect with patients in highly remote locations via video-conferencing. This includes primary specialist diagnoses, second opinions, recommended treatments based on clinical details, and appropriate radiological and laboratory investigations. The telemedicine unit also conducts telesurgeries linking remote doctors with expert surgeons during the procedure—Amrita Hospital Kochi was India’s first to carry this out. Amrita Telemedicine is also connected to 53 rural health care centers in the African subcontinent.
Amrita Hospitals have four Mobile Health Units, which are buses equipped with advanced facilities such as a telemedicine console, a digital X-Ray Unit, a 2-D echocardiography and ultrasonography, an automated and semi-automated blood-testing unit, and an electrocardiogram. The units are used to support health camps, as well as to aid in providing emergency care at disaster sites such as floods and earthquakes.
The Amrita Kripa Hospitals run as charitable, satellite units in semi-urban, rural, and isolated areas and serve people who would otherwise lack easy access to quality healthcare. All treatment is given free of charge. There are three in Kerala, one in Karnataka, and one in the Andaman Islands. Out of deep concern for indigenous populations, the doctors also make rounds to remote tribal hamlets.
The Ashram’s village health workers are more than 70 strong in rural and isolated areas throughout India and trained to monitor the needs of villagers, alongside providing health education to women and school children. Only local women are chosen for the job, as they are already trusted within the community. Moreover, as women, they can better connect with pregnant mothers-to-be and adolescent girls. The village health workers also form relationships with staff in the nearest professional healthcare centers, people such as doctors, nurses and midwives. In this way, the village health workers serve as a link between their communities and the existing healthcare infrastructure.
The Ashram’s health camps include teams of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who travel to rural areas to conduct more than 100 visits per year and meet patients in person. People are screened for serious diseases and referred to Amrita Hospital for further treatment when necessary.