In 2018, the then president of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Professor Mike Ogirima, lamented the low ratio of medical doctors to patients. He placed the number to be one doctor to six thousand people, as opposed to World Health Organisation’s (WHO) ratio of one doctor to six hundred people. There are currently about seven-two thousand doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria. However, according to Premium Times, nine in every ten doctors are considering job opportunity abroad, making Nigeria the country most affected by immigration of doctors.
According to the Vanguard, President Muhammadu Buhari, who in 2017 spent over hundred days in London for medical treatment, promised in his 2015 presidential campaign to, “Invest in cutting-edge technology such as telemedicine in all major health centres in the country…” and to “ban medical tourism by our politicians from May 29, 2015.” It is 2019, and the health sector is almost still in limbo.
With these and other depressing indices that have marred the healthcare sector, what hope do the common people have? Perhaps, it is not only the commoners that need hope. This is Nigeria where a federal state house clinic could not boast functional X-ray machines—all these extrapolated to many African countries.
When it seems hope is gone, some few entrepreneurs in the country are brainstorming to contribute their quota to the development of the country’s health sector through avant-garde technology. This is where the genius of Dr Funmi Adewara shines forth. As one of the leading innovators in this regard, Adewara’s fully integrated telemedicine start-up company, Mobihealth International—which is steadfastly becoming a household name—is digitally revolutionising Nigerian healthcare space as well as those of many African countries.
An MBBS graduate of the University of Ibadan and a Master of Philosophy graduate of the University of Cambridge with practical skills in bioscience entrepreneurship and leadership, her passion is to change the saddening narrative of the poor medical experience in Nigeria using borderless technological innovations. As one of the many young doctors who left the country over a decade ago for the United Kingdom, she is back with futuristic healthcare solutions to salvage many of the healthcare challenges on ground before she left.
Asked what motivated her to create Mobihealth, she said: “My personal childhood healthcare challenges and my first-hand experience during my medical training and afterwards—where I saw needless sufferings and deaths of children and pregnant women and other sick patients from preventable diseases—inspired me to found Mobihealth.”
Since November 2017, Mobihealth International has been providing pro bono medical services and health education to thousands of online subscribers whilst building the integrated Telemedicine app that is suitable and adaptable to the African user and that address the peculiar challenges of the healthcare system across the continent.
The Mobihealth Consult App was officially launched in London on the 16th of March 2019, bridging the gap in Africa’s healthcare space using technological applications to reduce treatment, pressure on healthcare facility, shortages of doctors and brain drain through a one-stop portal that provides millions of people access to more than hundred thousand medical experts mainly from Western countries but also to the best doctors locally through video consultation from the comfort of their homes.
Mobihealth is currently registered in the United Kingdom and in Nigeria, and plans are on-going to incorporate the business in Ghana, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, and some other African countries.
Adewara noted that Mobihealth has signed Memorandum of Understanding with some states and organisations in Nigeria and is in the process of concluding take off agreements in this regard. “Before the first quarter of 2020, we will be deploying telehealth clinics across some states in the country such as Lagos, Kwara, Ogun, Kano, Kaduna, Kebbi and Cross River,” she said.
“Our mission is to provide people in developing countries timely access to quality healthcare services from around the world when they need it and in the most effective and time efficient way leveraging technology using telemedicine—the use of modern data technology for clinical care from a distance,” Adewara said. “The quality and quantity of our doctors, multi-lingual experts, low cost and speed-of-care are some of the unique characters that set us apart from competitors.”
Mobihealth’s fully integrated telemedicine model will make it easier for consumers to access the entire value chain on a single platform reducing information overload and enhancing user friendliness and adoption. Mobihealth is positioning as the Uber of Medicine and aligning with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal-3 (SDGs-3), and expediting Universal Health Coverage, UHC, to reduce the burden of disease and preventable deaths associated with challenges in seeking and receiving healthcare services.
With the explosive mobile technology adoption across Nigeria and Africa, Adewara emphasised that: “It is no longer defensible that millions of people continue to die from preventable causes when the technology exists to change the dismal narrative.”
One of the major barriers to quality health care is cost. Research has shown that 25–50 per cent of sick children and adults in developing countries, including Nigeria, cannot afford proper healthcare services due to high cost. This, unfortunately, makes many people to seek cheap care from unqualified medical personnel, which might worsen their health.
The modus operandi of Mobihealth is simple, yet unique. Anyone can access the platform through the Mobihealth Consult App, obtainable from iOS and Android stores. For those without smart phones or who are in rural areas, the platform is to be easily accessible through one of the customised telehealth clinics.
The app enables patients to book appointment with over hundred thousand medical experts worldwide mainly but not exclusive from Western countries who speak English, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, French, Arabic and other languages. The app services also enable patients to receive laboratory tests, prescription, counterfeit medication detector, medication reminder, follow-up, referrals, healthcare education resource tools, and local capacity building. Importantly, subscribers have access to free internet data when using the Mobihealth Consult App.
Mobihealth plans are pocket friendly and affordable from N2000/month per family of up to six people on an annual contract basis. Premium services are available from as low as twenty-seven dollars per month on annual contract. The various plans cover consultations, investigations, treatments, referrals and home delivery of medications without any further out-of-pocket co-payment required for subscribers.
“Poor patients or those who live in rural areas who may not have access to phones or internet can access our telehealth walk-in clinics, which are satcom and solar powered,” she said.
Few weeks after Mobihealth was launched, it partnered with 9Mobile with the purpose of bringing affordable healthcare services to the doorsteps of Nigerians. At the event, Adewara noted that Nigeria is one of the fastest growing countries in mobile technology with more than one hundred-and-sixty million subscribers, forty per cent smart-phone penetration and 3G/4G networks that rivals those of the United States and Europe, stressing how this could be leveraged to bolster medical services.
Apart from 9Mobile, Mobihealth also has partnership with MTN. Through partnership with Telcos, subscribers get free internet data to use the Mobihealth Consult App. This is a unique advantage as cost of data is borne by Mobihealth rather than the user.
Early this November in Geneva, Switzerland, the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) endorsed Mobiheath as one of the few innovative business models that is providing inclusive and sustainable products and services in line with the commissions goals and objectives of SDGs.
Reacting to the CSTD endorsement, she said: “To have the United Nations endorsement of Mobihealth is phenomenal. I’m ecstatic and absolutely in awe of God for this great opportunity to be a force for change.”
With the national and the international impacts Mobihealth is making in the health ecosystem, it has been adopted by and partnered with many hospitals, diagnostic centres, pharmacies, logistic firms and organisations. One of the recent organisational partnerships was with the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationist (NAPE) during its November one-week international conference in Lagos, where Mobihealth was its Health and Safety provider.
Asked what she would do if she were the president of Nigeria to ensure that major healthcare centres have telemedicine facilities, she said she would create enabling environment for digital health businesses to flourish by leveraging technology and through commitment of adequate funds to the health sector at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. “I’ll improve the state of our health facilities, and also improve the working condition of doctors and other health workers so we can retain them, and reverse brain drain,” she said
Dr Funmi Adewara is optimistic that in five years, Mobihealth would play a vital role in reducing the disease burden of Africa. She believes that seventy per cent of medical issues in Africa, especially in Nigeria, could be resolved at primary healthcare level, and that Mobihealth mission is primarily focused on primary health level.
“Our intervention will reduce hospital congestion by over sixty per cent and improve time of diagnosis and treatment of diseases. In five years, our impact will be clearly evident and Mobihealth will be the preferred healthcare provider to every Nigerian, African, I mean everyone on the planet,” she said.