Lakshmi lives in the same house where she was born, in the village of Angalakuppam in Tamil Nadu, South India. She is 26 years old and has worked in the village’s medical dispensary since it opened in 2002.

Before the dispensary opened, the village’s residents, many of whom without access to transport faced a 16 kilometre journey to the nearest hospital and clinic in Puducherry. This barrier particularly affected the village’s older residents.

Along with the untold health benefits brought to the village the dispensary has seen Lakshmi become integral to daily life in Angalakuppam due to her work at the dispensary. As a girl growing up in a rural village, Lakshmi always wanted to go into medicine, but was unsure if she would receive an opportunity to pursue her wish of practising medicine. Lakshmi told me: ‘I always wanted to do a medical course or to become a doctor, but it was not possible for me in my family’.

When the dispensary opened in 2002 Lakshmi received training from a nurse three times a week for a period of 18 months, learning to prescribe appropriate medicines, give physical examinations and apply dressings. Lakshmi is proud of the service that she provides and says the best part of her job is ‘treating everyone, giving pregnancy advice and advising on immunisations for babies… I like working here because I can give a service to my people’.

Balakrishnan comes twice a week to receive tablets for back pain. The 67-year-old grandfather says that the dispensary has benefited ‘everyone’ and that now people are starting to come from surrounding villages.

Despite improved access to healthcare provided by the dispensary, Lakshmi knew that she would have to some dispel traditional anxieties surrounding the ‘new medicine’ and that as a girl from the village she would have to win the patients’ trust: ‘Yes, they were afraid to come here, I am a young girl and come from the village, “how can she treat us?”. Then after a few months we had 10 patients a day. Now we have up to 50 patients a day, it is like a hospital… people trust me more than the hospital!’

Since this article was written Lakshmi has married and moved from her childhood home. She now lives in a nearby village, travelling to the centre every day to continue her work at the centre.