I generally have a policy to say yes whenever it makes sense. In the last week this led to my serving as an auctioneer for a breast cancer fundraiser, and also a guest at a dinner discussing health care experiences.
The dinner was hosted by Possible, a non-profit that is offering high quality care to the world’s poorest populations. If this sounds too good to be true, it isn’t, but it is complex work. If you’re wondering why others haven’t done it before, perhaps it’s because they don’t have the passion you see shimmering in the eyes of Possible’s staff, including CEO Mark Arnoldy, who is among Forbes magazine’s 30 under 30 list of global changers.
Here’s some information about the amazing impact Possible is having in Nepal. I am going to make them my holiday charity for 2014: instead of gifts, I’ll ask people to consider making a donation. Consider doing the same this holiday season as a way to engage your friends/family in being a blessing to causes you care about.
1. Why Nepal?
Nepal has some of the most progressive healthcare policies in the world; the constitution guarantees the right to health and universal healthcare for the poor. But executing on those policies remains a challenge in rural areas, and millions don’t get the care they need from the traditional private, public, and charity approaches to healthcare. Our model of
durable healthcare enables us to be paid by the government to deliver healthcare within their infrastructure, and allows us to solve for the patient while aligning revenue with care.
Secondly, we were repeatedly told our vision for healthcare might work in some places, but not in Nepal. Which is precisely why we embraced the challenge, and charged forward determined to defy expectations. We knew that if we could create a healthcare model that worked fully for the poor in a region labeled impossible, our innovations and proof would be more powerful.
2. How many people have you reached? With what services?
To date, we’ve treated over 218K patients who make less than $2 a day and walk on average five hours to reach our hospital. We treat an array of medical issues, including: TB, HIV, safe births, fractures, malnutrition, dental, and mental health. We treat patients at our hospital, our surrounding clinics, and through our referral care program (with partner hospitals and our crowdfunding partner
Watsi) for advanced treatments.
3. How can we get involved?
You can directly invest in our work
here. You can also follow us on
Facebook and
Twitter for updates, and to receive patient stories, impact data, and more.
4. What’s the future look like for this program?
For the next five years, we are committed to improving and expanding our durable healthcare model in Nepal. We are going through a 2-year hospital expansion project to turn our hospital into the first rural, accredited teaching hospital in Nepal. We also plan to expand our number of health clinics to 72, and employ over 900 community healthcare workers to cover the entire Achham District, a population of over 250,000 people.
I generally have a policy to say yes whenever it makes sense. In the last week this led to my serving as an auctioneer for a breast cancer fundraiser, and also a guest at a dinner discussing health care experiences.