In Hyderabad, the for-profit health care system offers premium care at a premium price. Because of their cost, private clinics present an impossible barrier to care and do little for prevention or detection of infectious diseases.

The public health system in Hyderabad is poorly organized and poorly prepared to help those in need in an efficient, effective, and compassionate manner. Although centralized public hospitals are supposedly organized to deliver care as inexpensively as possible, with frustrating travel time to the hospital, long waits on site, corruption, lack of privacy, and shabby treatment, the overall cost of care to the patients and the community is actually much higher.

The India Health Foundation was created to bring optimum health care, primary prevention, and health education within reach of those living in poverty. Our goal is to systematically:

• Organize outstanding primary health care, health education and disease prevention
• Improve health care delivery by providing a successful working model that eliminates barriers to accessing such health care.
• Organize an outstanding referral service
• Provide health care education for providers and patients at all levels
• Enable cost-effective utilization of medial technology
• Target special health problems like malnutrition, TB, HIV, diabetes, and vision loss
• Develop community leaders especially among students of all ages, backgrounds, and cultures that will build a foundation for caring volunteers to share and serve those in need

The foundation aims to build a strong "first link" that will become a chain of effective health care delivery that may be emulated, adopted, and improved.