By Sekhar Seshan. Consulting Editor, Business India

Inclusivity, says Dr. Srivats Bharadwaj, is a way of life at Vatsalya Dental, which he set up in 2003. True to this ethos, the Bengaluru-headquartered chain of dental clinics treats its patients with compassion, which is what its name means.

Dentistry, he points out, is both expensive and extensive; in India, according to the health ministry, dental caries affects about 60 per cent of the people and periodontal disease about 85 per cent. Lack of access to quality care and affordability, combined with ignorance about the importance of oral hygiene, have severely impacted not just oral health, but general health.

Vatsalya’s work in giving back to society begins at home: no patient is ever sent back because he or she can’t afford treatment. Bharadwaj allows his poor patients to pay him whatever they can afford for the world-class treatment facilities he offers, without being subjected to rigid pricing plans. Many also come back weeks or even months later, to pay even this.

Until the Covid-19 pandemic set in, the clinic regularly organised weekend free oral health treatment programmes across the remotest areas of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, for years. It also operates one of the world’s largest free dental care initiatives at T. Begur village, about 40 km from Bengaluru, where over 1500 people queue up for long hours every Sunday morning for free treatment including not just fillings, extractions and root canal surgery, but even advanced procedures like maxilla-facial surgery.