When you traverse the streets of rural Karnataka, you are likely to encounter several girls called Vaatsalya (Sanskrit for ‘affection’). Many of them have one thing in common: They were born in the same hospital. Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions, founded in 2005 by Ashwin Naik and Veerendra Hiremath as a single hospital in Hubli, is today a chain of eight hospitals, each with 70 to 80 beds, spread across rural and semi-urban Karnataka—including districts such as Hubli, Gadag, Hassan, Shimoga and Mysuru—and Andhra Pradesh. Naik and Hiremath were roommates in Hubli’s Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences in the mid 1990s and shared a passion for catering to India’s underserved rural and semi-urban population.

 

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