By Team Mangalorean Bangalore

Bangalore, February 24, 2009: H. Sudarshan of Karuna Trust has been short listed for the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Group Awards for Lifetime Achievement for his pioneering work among tribal and public private partnership model for primary health care.

He is one of the 10 short listed candidates out of hundreds for the BMJ Group Awards for Lifetime Achievement which would be given on April 2, 2009 in London. He is also a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and the Padma Shri.

Dr. Hanumappa Sudarshan from Karnataka state is the only Indian among the short listed top ten persons for the consideration of the award.

Dr Sudarshan has spent his career improving the health of rural and tribal people in India. After becoming a doctor, Dr. Sudarshan joined the health institutions of Ramakrishna Mission which took him to the Himalayas of Uttar Pradesh, Belur Math in West Bengal and Ponnampet in Karnataka as part of the job. Instead of pursing a medical practice in the cities, he decided to work with tribal communities and in 1980, he started the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra for the integrated development of the tribals in the Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka.

He developed a public-private partnership model of primary health care with the Karuna Trust, a charitable trust based in Bangalore that he set up 10 years ago. Since then, the trust has set up primary health centres in three states, providing health care to more than 600,000 people in rural India.

Dr. Sudarshan was felicitated with the Right Livelihood Award in the year 1994, for showing how tribal culture can contribute to a process that secures the basic rights and fundamental needs of indigenous people and conserves their environment. Other prominent awards won by him include the Padma Shri Award (2000) by the President of India and the Rajyotsava State Award for social work (1984), given by the Government of Karnataka.

The BMJ said the Karuna Trust primary health centres provide around the clock emergency and casualty services, outpatient facilities on six days a week, a small five to 10 bed inpatient department, and 24 hour obstetric facilities.

Dr Sudarshan is firmly committed to state provision of health care, but set up the trust when it became clear that many primary health centres in rural India were providing very poor services, with insufficient staff and poor access to drugs. The trust’s aim is to set up primary healthcare centres that provide models to improve the working of other
government funded clinics in the area. To achieve this, he has introduced a range of innovations, including community health insurance, telemedicine, and the integration of mental health into primary care.

Dr Sudarshan has also served on several government committees working to improve public health, as well as working as a government appointed ombudsman to reduce corruption in health care, the journal said.

BMJ (British Medical Journal) Group is a trusted global medical publisher providing a wide range of innovative evidence-based medicine products that improve the decisions doctors and patients make every day. The inaugural BMJ Group Awards ceremony will take place on 2nd April 2009 and will recognize individuals, organisations and initiatives that can demonstrate outstanding and measurable contributions to health care.

Other awardees are: Patrick Bradley, Andrew Lister, Judith Mackay, Ann McPherson, Jill Mann, Sir Michael, Robert Schrier, Moises Selman and Sir Magdi Yacoub.