Overview

Mission Statement
Our organization is a unique assembly of public health experts and healthcare providers who use our collective expertise to develop long-term, system-level improvements in healthcare delivery in impoverished areas.

Where we work
Achham is one of the poorest districts in South Asia and has been severely affected by war and poverty. It is home to 250,000 people who previously had no doctor, and who invited Nyaya Health’s organizers to work towards the development of a new public health system. The district suffers from some of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in South Asia. The per capita income is less than $1 per day, and many people migrate to India for work.

Achham in Numbers
250,000 population of Achham
0 doctors in Achham before Nyaya arrived
10 hours in bus to reach the nearest airport and operating room
1 in 125 deliveries results in the mother’s death
64 number of stillborns for every 1,000 live births
50% of men migrate to India for work, over 7% return with HIV
83 in 1,000 children don’t survive past the age of five
99.5% of babies are born in homes and cattle sheds
50¢ average daily per capita income in Achham
60% of children are chronically malnourished

What We Do
Nyaya Health’s activities in Achham are centered in a community health center focusing on comprehensive primary care, including maternal and child health, infectious disease prevention and treatment, and management of chronic conditions for an expanding catchment population of a quarter million people. The health center is located in the major transit hub for the region and treats 1,200 patients per month on average. It is run by over twenty Nepali staff including physicians, community healthcare workers, nurse midwives, lab technicians, pharmacists, and project managers. The center includes a comprehensive laboratory, pharmacy, clinical diagnosis and treatment rooms, infusion space, a delivery suite, capacity for wet and dry storage, and safe medical waste incineration and disposal. We have additionally developed a network of community health workers who constitute mobile teams providing outreach, triage, treatment and follow-up services to a geographically dispersed population. All medical care is provided free-of-charge, with a focus on health equity and outreach to the poorest and most marginalized patients. Nyaya’s services have been developed in collaboration with the government of Nepal; our agreements with the government help us strive towards our goal of full integration with public-sector health programs, which involves developing infrastructure that will eventually become part of the new general public health system.

An Open Source Organization
Nyaya Health strives towards the highest standards of transparency and accountability. In this pursuit, we have adopted an entirely “open source” organizational approach. Our budget, activities and plans are all online, and fully accessible to the public. We employ both electronic and paper-based methods that provide full disclosure to donors and the general public. This includes our central website (www.nyayahealth.org), which acts as a source for general news and information; an online “wiki” (wiki.nyayahealth.org), or rapidly-editable webpage, which provides extensive details about our clinical protocols and operations; and our blog (blog.nyayahealth.org), where we post stories about the community and our efforts to improve healthcare services.