Vogue Warriors: Meet the doctor and philanthropist who is ensuring safe healthcare for underprivileged pregnant women

For urogynecologist Dr Aparna Hegde, Mumbai is so much more than just her birthplace. She credits the city with shaping her into the person she is today. Multi-faceted and constantly on-the-move could easily apply not only to the Maximum City, but also this spirited doctor and philanthropist. Dr Hegde moved back to India a few years ago from the United States following stints at Stanford University and the acclaimed Cleveland Clinic to follow a dream, and give back to a city that has provided her with so many opportunities.

Whether it is through her non-profit organisation ARMMAN (Advancing Reduction in Mortality and Morbidity of Mothers, Children and Neonates) or with the 5,000 square foot government- and charity-funded mother-child facility that she runs at the Cama and Albless hospital in Mumbai, Dr Hegde today is committed to improving natal healthcare in India.

Over the last several weeks, as the world, and India, grapples with the devastation of COVID-19, Dr Hegde continues to put the health of women and children first. Even through the lockdown, she and her colleagues continue to deliver upto 15 babies every day born to mothers who may be COVID-19 positive, or not, and may or may not present symptoms of the virus.

“If a pregnant woman or a child comes in, we will take care of them. The hospital has been turned into a care facility with almost 100 beds for mothers and children who have the virus, and we are committed to providing them the best care we can,” she says. “My colleague, the superintendent of the hospital, and I take turns doing rounds, as we do not want to expose the residents to the virus.” In addition to being a frontline worker herself, she is also fundraising for personal protective equipment for other frontline workers.

Giving back

“Quite early on in my life, growing up in Pant Nagar chawl in Ghatkopar, I realised that I wanted to centre my life around three pillars—science, service and research, and I’ve spent my career making that happen,” says the multiple award-winning Dr Hegde, over a Zoom conversation on a Saturday night. It’s nearly 8.30pm, and her working day is nowhere near coming to a close.

She speaks quickly, and animatedly, about the many hats she juggles. “I’m lucky to be in a field which is an amalgamation of all my passions, and allows me to give back to the community. Through my experiences as a resident at Sion Hospital, I saw first hand that women were dying of many preventable causes. I realised that when you start digging beneath the surface of society, there is extreme indignity. The poor deserve to have access to dignified treatment. The quality of women’s lives matter,” she says of her guiding motto. “For every woman that dies, 30 others suffer. Ninety percent of these deaths are preventable. I knew that if I had to make a difference, I could only do that if I went into the community.”

Care for all

Apart from her constant commitments at Cama hospital, Dr Hegde continues to be actively involved in ARMANN, the charity she founded in 2008, when she first moved to the US to pursue a master’s degree at Stanford University. This non-profit organisation uses mobile technology to provide evidence-based, cost-effective scalable solutions in maternal and child health, which they do via programs like the mMitra and Kilkari.

mMitra is a free mobile voice-call service that sends critical care information to enrolled women during pregnancy and infancy, and is currently implemented in 16 states across India, affecting the lives of 18 million women and children, and with access to nearly 1.7 million healthcare workers across the country. Kilkari is a similar programme implemented along with the MoHFW (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) in a public-private partnership model from 2019-2021, and reaches 16.6 million subscribers across 13 states, in five different languages. Since the virus struck, the charity has leveraged its tech platforms expertise for Rapid Response to COVID-19 to support people in rural areas, urban slums (including migrant workers) and health workers by disseminating crucial information on the virus. In addition to this, they are also training hundreds of community health workers.

Dr Hegde tells us about a recent case, where a 19-year-old pregnant woman visited her sister in Dharavi, a virus hotspot. Her husband is a migrant worker, and they were unable to return to West Bengal due to the lockdown. ARMANN was able to guide her to arrange for an ambulance to take her to hospital to deliver her baby, and also supported her through caring for her infant who was born with jaundice. Both mother and child are now safe and healthy. Through ARMANN and her work at the hospital, Dr Hegde has touched the lives of millions of underprivileged women across the country.

While COVID-19 related work has taken precedence in Dr Hegde’s life at the moment, she is still focused on her dream of establishing a world-class centre of excellence in urogynaecology with the centre she’s developing at the Cama Hospital, supporting research and academics, and providing equal opportunity care for all. Judging by her track record, the centre’s success is predetermined. But when you talk about her achievements and accolade, Dr Hegde brushes it off. “If I can save lives, that’s all that matters.”

Vogue Warriors shines the spotlight on the women at the medical frontlines and essential services—doctors, nurses, scientists, innovators—alongside behind-the-scene heroes working tirelessly to help us through the ongoing pandemic.

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