How Nigeria’s health crises birthed problem-solving start-ups
It is often said that any problem is an opportunity in disguise. Yes, Nigeria is faced with health crises in many ramifications, but these are rather opportunities for a number of young entrepreneurs.
The country has demography of 198 million, which presents a market opportunity but also a health burden on the government. The 2017 alone was marred by outbreaks of diseases such Lassa fever, which occurred in 718 cases wherein 68 persons died. Between January and July 2018, there have been 115 deaths in confirmed cases and 10 in probable cases. Cerebrospinal meningitis was suspected in 14,518 cases, across 181 local government councils, with 1,166 people reported death. There were many other issues last year, and many health cases have come up this year too, which ordinarily should leave everybody complaining. However, young entrepreneurs are going into the health sector with a different, innovative mind-set. Let us now have a close look at how start-ups are leveraging innovation to solve healthcare challenges while making millions in the process.
Flying Doctors Nigeria
Flying Doctors Nigeria was founded by Ola Orekunrin Brown, a medical doctor, helicopter pilot and the healthcare entrepreneur. Brown founded Flying Doctors Nigeria, West Africa’s first air ambulance service, after her younger sister died while traveling in Nigeria. Today, the 32-year-old entrepreneur, who graduated from the University of York, UK, at the age of 21, speaks in various fora. Her firm has over 20 aircraft, which have airlifted more than 500 air travellers.
At the September Breakfast Meeting of the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce held in Lagos, Brown said there were two forces militating against small businesses and start-ups.
She called one ‘market forces’ and the other ‘evil forces’.
“The real issues are around evil forces. I have helped smaller companies to wage ‘spiritual warfare’ against these forces,” she said, to the amusement of the audience.
“The first of the evil forces and the biggest one is multiple taxation. If you look at how much tax small businesses are supposed to pay, you will see why they are not competitive.
“You pay 30 percent of your profit. If you do it the way it is supposed to be done, maybe 50 percent of your revenue can go to tax. But then, you now forget you owe the banks and you have to pay 20 percent interest. You also pay to Lagos Inland Revenue Service (LIRS). These are the kind of things that affect our competitiveness and stop us from reaching these standards.” Brown said the second force was the structure of the banking industry. “Because the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) is high, the interest rate is high. From the accessible commercial banks, the least you can get is 18 percent, that is if someone wants to help. At the micro level, maybe it is difficult to access,” she said.
SaferMom
SaferMom empowers pregnant and new mothers to make informed health decisions through SMS, voice calls and mobile apps.
What this platform does is to help mothers monitor and track their health and that of their newborn babies. They can also monitor their antenatals, immunisation schedules for their babies, nutrition and behavioural routines. SaferMom contents are available in English, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and Pidgin English.
Basically, SaferMom tries to tackle poor access to preventive health care, reduce cost of health care services, improve health care literacy and help cut rising mortality rate.
SaferMom sends SMS or uses a voice call twice a week to contact mothers on issues such as pregnancy follow up, parenting tips, common symptoms, child health care tips, nutrition guides, sexual and reproductive rights, family planning tips, clinic reminders and immunisation reminders.
It was co-founded by Adeloye Olanrewaju after he found a huge gap in health literacy, social and psychological support for mothers while serving as an intern at a small primary health centre catering for over 12,000 pregnant mothers and newborns monthly.
Safermom recently emerged as one of the top six winners of the Internet.org Innovation Challenge in Africa awards.
MOBicure
MOBicure is a social enterprise that provides mobile technology solutions to some of the most pressing healthcare issues facing Nigeria and other developing nations.
It was co-founded by Charles Immanuel Akhimien, a medical doctor, entrepreneur, UN SDG Young Leader & UN SDG pioneer.
Its flagship product is called Omomi, which is a mobile platform for pregnant women and mothers of under-5s, which enables them to monitor their children’s health and have access to specific and life-saving maternal and child health information, as well as medical expertise at the touch of a button.
MOBicure was recently founded to bring healthcare to the doorsteps of Nigerians using mobile technology. The platform has also innovated MyPaddi app, which enables free discussion on health-related issues, including insights on sex, contraceptives, and abuse, among others.
KompleteCare
This was launched in May this year to reduce the amount of time patients spend in public hospitals before being attended to.
The app, which can be accessed at the Google play store using a mobile phone, is a collaborative effort between the Society for Family Physicians of Nigeria (SOFPON) and a healthcare company in Nigeria, Sevenz Healthcare.
Doctors register via the app and get paid for their services.
“You’ll have to fill in your MDCN number. It will be confirmed first before you are allowed to log in as a doctor. There’s a place for doctors, and there’s a place also for the patient. The app will direct a patient on the doctor to meet – let’s say a cardiologist,” the group said.
“In the future, the biggest hospital will be on your mobile phone.”
Medsaf.com
Buying and selling of drugs in Nigeria can be challenging. Medsaf’s entrance into the health sector is to make this process easy and efficient. Through its platform, Medsaf gets medications directly from leading local and foreign manufacturers, eliminating issues relating to quality control and ensuring fair pricing, and deliver these medications to hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics all over the country.
Founded by Vivian Nwakah, the firm provides customers with an inventory management system that allows them to see real-time stock levels for their medications, receive order reminders and alerts, while accessing historical sales data for forecasting.
Nwakah’s Medsaf won the Nigerian leg of the Seedstars World competition in 2017, earning it a chance to pitch for $500,000 in equity investment at the global final in Switzerland this year.
Ubenwa
Ubenwa is saving newborn lives by enabling quick and cost-effective diagnosis of birth asphyxia (suffocation) from infant cry. Co-founded by Charles Onu and Udeogu Innocent in 2017, this start-up employs artificial intelligence (AI) in solving healthcare problems.
Birth Asphyxia is one of the top three causes of infant mortality in the world, causing the death of about 1.2 million infants annually and severe life-long disabilities such as cerebral palsy, deafness, and paralysis.
Ubenwa is developing a machine learning system that can take as input the infant cry, analyse the amplitude and frequency patterns in the cry, to provide instant diagnosis of birth asphyxia.
As of December last year, the founders said the AI solution had achieved over 95 percent prediction accuracy in trials with nearly 1,400 pre-recorded baby cries.
Kangpe
Kangpe provides a platform to enable users to ask doctors their health questions and get answers within 10 minutes.
It was founded by Femi Kuti, Ope Olumeken and Matthew Mayaki, who launched Kangpe in Nigeria in 2015. Three years after, the start-up has extended from Nigeria to Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and some French-speaking African countries.
ODINAKA ANUDU