Free check-ups, eye care, dental camps, and the quiet work of catching disease early — what we've learned from running 40+ health camps.

The most useful thing a free health camp does is not what you'd think. It's not the medicine handed out, or the consultations given. It's the discovery of conditions that no one knew were there. Diabetes that has been silently destroying kidneys for five years. Cataracts that the patient has accepted as 'just getting old.' A breast lump a woman has been hiding because she didn't know who to ask. The camp catches these. That's the real work.

We have now run over 40 free health camps across rural Maharashtra. Each camp is a partnership — we provide the venue, the volunteers, the registration, the food and transport for the doctors. Local hospitals and individual doctors provide the medical expertise, often for free, sometimes for just the cost of supplies. Pharmaceutical donors provide medicines. The model only works because everyone gives a little.

A typical camp screens 200-300 patients in a day. We focus on basic check-ups — blood pressure, blood sugar, weight, heart rate, basic eye exam, dental check, gynaecological consultation for women, paediatric consultation for children. The patients who need follow-up are connected with district hospitals and, where possible, supported with transport and paperwork.

We learned early that a one-day camp followed by nothing is a missed opportunity. So our camps now come with a 'circle-back' protocol. Two weeks after the camp, our volunteers visit the patients flagged for follow-up. We make sure they actually went to the hospital. We help if they didn't. About 70% of follow-ups happen this way that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

If you are a doctor or healthcare worker who would like to volunteer at one of our camps, please get in touch. We can host you for a Sunday in a village you have never been to, treating people who have not seen a doctor in years. You will go home tired. You will also go home with a clearer sense of why you became a doctor in the first place.