One major hurdle in healthcare is physical access to both medical supplies, and trained healthcare professionals. Overcoming this hurdle means making sure that medical supplies are transported where they are needed, and that patients can safely travel to health care providers, or that trained nurses and doctors can travel to them. For areas that are geographically isolated by rivers, gorges, seasonal flooding, or a natural disaster, bridges are an important part of that solution. A bridge over the river would solve all of these health care problems. Bridges to Prosperity, a nonprofit which aims to build bridges across impassable rivers to isolated communities around the world, reports a 24% increase in healthcare treatment after the construction of bridges in these communities.
Building a bridge in an isolated area, or after a big disaster, can be difficult; it may be very tricky, given the local terrain, and too expensive to bring in heavy equipment and lots of supplies. Instead, the supplies and labor often have to fit in just a few pickup trucks, be brought in by mule, or even brought in on people's backs. Because of this, the materials must be as lightweight as possible. At the same time, you still want the bridge to be able to hold as great a load as possible so that it can be useful to the community now and as the community and its traffic grows.