Shuchin Bajaj | Source | Founder Director at Ujala Cygnus

Shuchin is an Indian medical doctor who founded Ujala Cygnus Healthcare, now a chain of 16 hospitals supported by outreach village Sehat Clinics and a Digital Health Network, Medpho, which deliver low-cost healthcare aimed primarily at poor and marginalized communities outside of India’s urban centers. He says he was inspired to concentrate on finding healthcare for the poor because of his own upbringing as the son of refugees from Pakistan who lived in resource constrained circumstances. Shuchin says his model is based on sharply cutting set-up costs, eliminating the fee-for-service model for paying doctors, and never turning away patients due to inability to pay. “It is a fireable offense at Ujala Cygnus to deny care to someone purely for financial reasons,” he says. He says it is up to social entrepreneurs to resolve India’s deepening healthcare crisis because the government has stepped back from offering a social safety net. He believes his model of low-cost hospitals & preventive health could be adapted to other countries, and he wants to reach beyond India with his message.