Rendering Healthcare Services in the Slums of Hyderabad

Over the past decade, Hyderabad has been buzzing with commerce and simultaneously, seen a rise in the number of slums due to rapid urbanization and lack of effective urban planning. The latest census data reveals that the slum population of the Telangana capital has increased by an astounding 264% and accounts for almost 33% of its total population (7 million). More than half of its slum population (2.3 million) have lived in Hyderabad for over 10 years and the remaining migrated here from different parts of India in the last decade. These slum dwellers are mainly street vendors and construction labourers or are engaged in unorganised economic sectors.

The total number of slum households in the metropolitan is somewhere around 0.5 million. This burgeoning urban poor population live in grim conditions without basic civic amenities like safe drinking water and sanitation, which adversely affects their immune system and increases their vulnerability to infectious and communicable diseases like tuberculosis, diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria and dengue. Lack of public healthcare services and absence of health-seeking behaviour in these underserved communities further makes it challenging for them to lead a healthy life.