Listen to this articleEKITI, NIGERIA: As an ulcer patient, Ayomide Ikumapaye, a 300-level Computer Engineering student of Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti, usually encountered health issues while engrossed in school activities.
Ikumapaye said his experience using physical healthcare centres for his symptoms was often not too good. Reflecting on a recent hospital visit, Ayomide expressed his frustrations.
“For instance, the last time I used a hospital, I misplaced my card so getting there, I just felt they could check my record and I should get my card. But I was told to go get another card again. I paid again [and] went through the same process. I feel it is the 21st century, they could at least get my record and just pay a little amount and get me back on track.”
He also noted that the response time at hospitals is often very slow even for those with critical and recurring symptoms like his. “because currently I am treating ulcer and sometimes when I get these symptoms , I have to go to the hospital to complain. So, things like that, when I am not okay and I have to still wait for minutes before seeing a doctor, that’s poor health service,” Ikumapaye further said.
Nigeria’s population is over 220 million, out of this population, 70 percent rely on primary healthcare facilities in the country. There are about 30,000 Primary Healthcare Centres, and PHCs across Nigeria, but less than 20 percent are fully equipped for quality services.
Media reports all show that 6 out of every ten Nigerians lack access to quality primary healthcare services due to availability and cost. This has deprived individuals, families, and communities of quality healthcare, especially in times of emergency.
With national healthcare centres and hospitals across Nigeria ill-equipped, campus healthcare centres across higher institutions in Nigeria are worse off as confirmed by several media investigations.
A Promising Impact
One evening in 2020, Jesutoni Omiye fell ill and could not travel home (as always) to meet his mother, who’s a nurse for treatment—as the night was closing in already. Watching him groan without any drugs, his friends offered to take him to the school health centre for some medications to ease the pain.
“On getting to the school health centre, we found out that it was not open. And the only other option for a medical practitioner was to go to a hospital, clinic, or teaching hospital in town and, for that, we don’t know how much we will be charged because I would have to buy a card, and other expenses. We had no other choice but to go to a pharmacy in the school area, buy some pain-relieving drugs, and go back to the hostel,” Omiye explained.
After his health scare and the difficulty in accessing care, Omiye, who is a sickle cell patient and a medical student at EKSU was inspired to establish “JEAY Healthcare” together with his friend, Toluwanimi Fanibuyan.
The health-tech start-up seeks to deliver quality healthcare services to students in EKSU and everyone regardless of their location. According to Omiye, “the issue of the health centre has actually been a problem for us students at school. I was not the only one who had experienced it, I know a lot of people (including Tolu) who have experienced unavailability of healthcare.”
“This experience was what mainly inspired the idea. I really don’t want anyone to pass through what I went through,” he said.
JEAY Healthcare was founded in May 2022 and formally launched in February 2023, but since then, it has racked up over 300 mobile app downloads on the Google Play Store, 130 daily users, 10 medical consultations, and over 20 scheduled appointments, in addition to having six medical practitioners on staff.
“The main reason why we are just launching now, and not earlier around 2022 is because we were building our mobile app, we wanted to make it very easy to understand and book appointments. Now, It is ready; we have built one of the best telemedicine mobile apps in Nigeria,” says Omiye.
How Does It Work?
A clinical practitioner, Dr Joy Aifuobhokhan told The SolutionsPaper that healthcare professionals now make use of information and communication technologies for the exchange of valid information such as diagnosis, treatment, research and evaluation.
JEAY Healthcare operates within this technology advancement to ensure quality and time-saving healthcare is given to students and the general public within the age group of 18-50 years.
After downloading the mobile application, you sign up and then have immediate access to all available services on the platform.
As a patient/user, you schedule an appointment and it gets confirmed by a doctor. However, a payment of one-thousand naira ($2.17) is required before having access to the doctor through either chat, voice or video call on the platform.
The JEAY Healthcare app provides a video conferencing system to aid proper care for distant patients/users, an online pharmacy, an online medical test section, and medical consultations. JEAY Healthcare collaborates with highly qualified medical practitioners who help carry out consultations for their patients.
Elizabeth Ajibade, one of the beneficiaries of JEAY Healthcare, described the application’s process as seamless; starting from downloading the app, the registration process, and to booking an appointment.
According to her, booking an appointment was easy and fair enough. “There were two doctors,” she says, “and I had the opportunity to [make] my choice; I was able to choose the person I wanted because the details of the doctors were already there, so it made it easy to choose who I wanted.”
Speaking about her session with the doctor, Ajibade told The SolutionsPaper that “her right ear had been aching for a while” and she told the doctor her predicament. However, Ajibade would still have to go to a physical clinic “because of the peculiarity of the ear ache”.
“It was just for diagnoses so they can be sure which is why I had to go to a hospital. For the meantime, a drug was prescribed for me to use to ease the headaches I had complained of”
Initially, a friend recommended the app to Ikumapaye who downloaded and registered on the app.
“On a day when I was facing health issues, experiencing headaches and fever while busy with school, I simply went online, opened the app, and scheduled an appointment with a doctor. I was promptly given an appointment date within the same week, and I paid a consultation fee of ₦1,000,” Ikumapaye said.
During the virtual consultation, Ikumapaye described his symptoms to the doctor, engaging in a conversation via phone. The doctor subsequently prescribed medication, which Ikumapaye procured and took as instructed. Within a few days, he experienced relief.
“Since then, I have come to rely on online healthcare services. Initially, I was skeptical about its effectiveness. However, due to my demanding schedule and academic commitments, I decided to give it a try.”
Challenges
JEAY Healthcare is relatively new and not many people inside and outside EKSU are aware of its services. In addition to this, reaching other campuses and local communities remains a challenge owing to the digital nature of the services offered.
Boluwatife Adeniyi, another beneficiary who got to know about JEAY Healthcare through their Instagram page, noted that the doctor he consulted took a lot of time to respond
Omiye also told The SolutionsPaper that work is ongoing to address these challenges including that of finance.
“We are looking forward to raising money from investors as we have started the process already and want to raise a pre-seed funding that will help us to hire more teams, business development/marketing, and deployment’’
Editors Credit
Lead editor: Zainab Oyiza Adetola
Sub-editor: Precious Ewuji
Salako Emmanuel is a Nigerian freelance data journalist and researcher. His research and journalistic works cover technology, health, community development, and more.
Beautiful piece