When Prabhat Shrivastava’s father was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, he saw the gap in renal care accessibility, particularly in India’s tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

Sharing his family’s experience, he says, “I was shocked that I couldn’t find quality dialysis centres in my hometown Jabalpur, which is not a small city.”

“Also, I found people travelling 100 km daily for dialysis, and it was heartbreaking. While I could relocate my father to Gurgaon, not everyone has that luxury,” he shares.

As Prabhat discussed this with his father’s nephrologist, Dr Saurabh Pokhariyal, they knew that they had to address this gap.

Another friend of Prabhat’s, Pankaj Tandon, a Chartered Accountant, joined them in their mission to make quality dialysis care accessible.

In 2017, the trio founded VitusCare to increase the number of dialysis centres in tier-2 and tier-3 towns.

The startup identifies a space to set up centres. Thereafter, it employs support staff and using a hub-and-spoke model, they also monitor all centres through their central team in Gurgaon.

The company has a clinical team, a biomedical team, administrative staff, a network of delivery therapists, nurses, nephrologists, operations teams, and teams that focus on increasing awareness.

Over the past six years, the company has established 35 dialysis centres in seven states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan, providing over 15,000 sessions per month.

VitusCare provides free dialysis for patients under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, addressing the financial barriers that often prevent patients from seeking necessary treatment.