A few years ago Sanjoy Hazarika, founder of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research (CNES), had a "Eureka!" moment.

While he was filming along the Brahmaputra river in north east India, he stopped off on Majoli island in the state of Assam. There he heard the story of a heavily pregnant woman, who died while she was being taken to a hospital on the mainland to deliver her baby.

Assam is infamous for its abysmal maternal mortality rate which is the highest in the country. The state, along with the rest of north east India, faces numerous problems stemming from conflict, lack of infrastructure, poor educational and medical services etc. And amongst the most remote communities are about 3 million people who live on the some 2500 river islands in the region.

“It is really unacceptable in this day and age that people have to die because of lack of care,” says Hazarikia. After he he heard the story of the young woman who died in childbirth, he thought that if these river people couldn't get to medical services, then he should try to get medical services to them - so he had an idea. Boat clinics.

Highest maternal mortality rate

Today, the boat clinics set up by the CNES are addressing the issue of access to medical services in Assam. They reach half a million of the state’s population across 13 districts along the river.

You can listen to Sanjoy Hazarika, the brain behind the boat clinics, on this week’s South Asia Wired.

Also on the programme Dutchman Rene Veldt talks about how the continuing “brain drain” of Nepal affected him personally when one of the most beloved and indispensable employees of the orphanage he runs there left with just a few days notice. But how do  you keep a country’s most experienced and trained personnel in a country with few job prospects, bad governance and barely any functioning infrastructure?