St. Stephen's Hospital is situated in the northern part of Delhi and is a non-profit-making, state-of-art, 650 bedded, autonomous Society. The hospital was founded by a missionary lady named Priscilla Winter in 1885. She was not a doctor but she responded to the immense needs of the people she came across, especially of the women in the Old Delhi area. Slowly she worked to establish the hospital with inputs from qualified people. It began as a small maternity centre and has grown into to a state of the art super specialty hospital. The advent of high technology has not dimmed the original vision of the founder. The hospital continues to provide much needed quality care to the underprivileged around the area at an affordable cost. To many who cannot afford even this, the treatment is given totally free.

The poorest of poor are often voiceless people. Many are scared of even entering large modern hospitals. They find it difficult to verbalize their needs. Often the cost of travelling and bringing the patient to the hospital is prohibitive. We at St. Stephen’s Hospital are sensitive to the needs of such people and do not wish to limit ourselves to running free clinics and giving concessions in the hospital premises. We wish to reach out to the unreachable by providing a Community Health Department to give health care in its true spirit. It is a just reflection of our commitment to the poor that we are the only non-medical college hospital in Delhi that runs a highly efficient and professionally managed Community Health Department.

The Community Health Department St Stephen’s started its operations in the 1980s from a slum called Sunder Nagri. It is situated in the Trans-Yamuna area, about 16 Kms from St Stephen’s Hospital. In the beginning a small outreach clinic was established in a hut, donated by the local community. It provided clinical health care, immunization and antenatal care. It serves underprivileged people living in slums and rural areas, in and around Delhi and also provides comprehensive health, education and development services to over 15000. Over the years the department has grown, both in terms of the population covered and in the scope of the services provided. A more substantial building was erected in 1983 on the land given by the Delhi Government. By the end of 1990 the Community Health Department provided regular home visits, Maternal and Child Health care, a tuberculosis control programme and a Day Care Center (Creche) for underprivileged children. Inspired by the results of this outreach programme, the hospital decided to expand and improve the quality of services. In 1991, a rural programme was started in the eight villages of Gurgaon, Haryana. A family folder based management information system was introduced for effective monitoring and management of the health care delivery at the doorstep. Currently the Community Health Department actively covers a population of over 73000 in Delhi and 25000 in rural Haryana. It is also accredited for the DNB, Social Preventive Medicine(SPM).

It has been stated by the World Health Organization that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely absence of any disease or infirmity". Therefore a health program should be developed in the context of prevailing social and developmental issues. Education has already been shown to be highly effective in controlling morbidity, mortality and population growth. It is understood that the solution to most public health problems lies in better education, gender equality, economic growth and improved sanitation. Since 1980 The Community Health Department of St Stephen’s has addressed a vast spectrum of social problems with a holistic approach to community health. In 1982-3 a Day Care Centre (Creche) for young children of underprivileged families was started. Following this “women empowerment” and “income generation” programmes were established such as the Tailoring Training Programme, the Finest Spices Business (Saha Shakti Mahila) and the Handicraft and Ethnic Garment Production programme. A Women’s Saving Schemes has proven successfully and many other income generation projects are evolving with the encouragement and support of the centre.

Since 1990 a system of monitoring and evaluation has been in progress to ensure maximum quality and better organization of the Community Health Department. The work of the centre has shown encouraging results in its audits. The department has been able to achieve high levels of immunization & family planning coverage with a lowering of the birth rate. Besides this it is felt that there has been an improvement in women’s awareness and emancipation.. We have had positive results from our child lead projects such as the Child-To-Child School Health and Child-To-Child Education programmes. We are covering more and more underprivileged in the community each year as our services develop.

St Stephen’s Community Health Department hopes to continue and improve its existing holistic health, education also development services. We have plans for new innovative social health and research projects. We will continue to strive to share knowledge and join forces with other likeminded organizations nationally and internationally in order to improve the health and quality of life of the underprivileged “the poorest of the poor”.