Nyaya Health

The Problem

Over 2.2 million people live in Nepal’s Far-Western Region, where the average annual per capita government health expenditure is about $8. The poorest rely on government health services, but these services in rural Nepal are underfunded and opaque. Thus, care doesn't reach the very people that need it the most. Non-governmental organizations that could choose to inject capital and provide transparency to improve these systems in partnership with the government fail to do so. The 2008 Global Accountability Report revealed that nearly all major NGOs perform extremely poorly on transparency, with most ranking lower than private, for-profit corporations.

Plan of Action

Nyaya Health employs an all-Nepali staff to deliver health care through government infrastructure that is community-based, hospital-linked, and clinic-enriched. Bayalpata Hospital: Nyaya Health operates this comprehensive 25-bed hospital serving over 260,000 people. Community Health: Nyaya Health provides income and training to 80 community health workers who provide health education, follow-up, treatment adherence, and referrals for over 17,300 people. Health Clinics: Nyaya Health began by operating a clinic, and is currently designing operating partnerships at other sites. Because Nyaya Health works through government infrastructure, each innovation presents an opportunity to advocate and scale elsewhere in Nepal. To disseminate innovations globally, we conduct implementation research and publish all our data, protocols, budgets, and manuals on our organizational wiki. To operate transparently, we also make all materials, including outcomes data, line-by-line budgets, internal documents, and email correspondence freely available. Our plan of action is to continue to scale the model of health care delivery we have developed through Far-Western Nepal to reach more people.