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LifeSpring Hospital in India is innovatively meeting the growing demand of low-income women who deserve affordable and dignified medical care. By focusing on a particular niche, maternal care, and different cost-saving strategies, this hospital provides maternal care at one-fifth of market rates…and makes profits too.

LifeSpring is a 50:50 joint venture between the public sector contraceptive maker HLL Lifecare (formerly Hindustan Latex Limited) and New York-based private social investor Acumen Fund.

In India, about 100,000 Indian women die every year due to the lack of skilled care during pregnancy. These women have been historically underserved. The big private sector names such as Apollo and Fortis are out of reach and the quality at the free government hospitals isn’t up to scratch. LifeSpring was started with the aim of addressing this deficiency.

At LifeSpring, normal deliveries cost only around Rs 2,000. That includes the cost of a two-day stay in the hospital and the medicines. The same could easily cost upwards of Rs 12,000 anywhere else. Similarly, Caesarean operations cost Rs 7,000 at LifeSpring — just a fifth of what’s charged outside.

What’s perhaps more astonishing is the fact that LifeSpring is profitable. LifSpring also plans to launch 22 more such hospitals in the next 20 months at a cost of $4 million.