Let’s talk public health ­is a conversation initiated by the Azim Premji University, to learn from meaningful contributions to community’s health and wellbeing through cutting-edge practice, and to deliberate on contemporary public health issues that intersect community, health systems, and policy.

Making Primary Health Care Work: Context, Response and Insights

In this conversation, Dr. Pavitra Mohan, the founder member of Basic Health Care Services (BHS), will present operationalisation of primary health care, modelled around the compelling realities of the marginalised communities in rural South Rajasthan. BHS has placed the context of the communities at the centre of the approach and strategies. The story will focus on the evolution, operationalisation, insights drawn, and lessons learnt from the decade-long intervention. Some of these insights and lessons may be relevant to other organisations and individuals that seek to design responsive, context-driven primary healthcare initiatives for the marginalised communities.

About the speaker

Dr Pavitra Mohan is co-founder of Basic Health Care Services, a not-for-profit organisation that provides low cost, high quality primary healthcare services for the marginalised populations in South Rajasthan. A public health physician and a paediatrician by training, he earlier served as Health Specialist with UNICEF India in Rajasthan and in New Delhi.

He is a Fellow of National Neonatology Forum (NNF) of India in 2010 and is recipient of Ashoka Fellowship for social entrepreneurship. He writes widely on primary healthcare, migrants and healthcare and health equity.