South African startup BusyMed is driven by connecting people from rural areas to pharmacies from the comfort of their homes so that they can access consultation and healthcare services.
About BusyMed
BusyMed was founded in 2018 by Mphati Jezile as a one-man band, the startup is focused on offering medical products to customers from local independent pharmacies by delivering them to their homes and including prescriptions on how to take the drugs- all of which are done in 60 minutes.
In a statement, the CEO of BusyMed, Mphati Jezile told Disrupt Africa:
“Our goal is to offer primary healthcare businesses in the public and private sector the technology and resources they would need to serve the communities they are based in, and beyond, from the comfort of the patient’s home, at an affordable price.
BusyMed seeks to solve a challenge that many South Africans face- not having access to affordable and convenient primary healthcare services. COVID-19 has made us all realize the strain our healthcare system is under, which means more services like BusyMed are essential in supporting the struggling healthcare system”.
What BusyMed Offers
The startup has a mobile application that the owner, Jezile, says will enable users to have access to over 300 pharmacies before the year runs out. The company has also secured funding worth $250,000 and the CEO has said that it hopes and aims to seek further investment.
In a statement, Jezile said: “The first 24 months or so were quite a tricky thing to navigate because we had to solve complex regulatory challenges and present our service in a way that can be affordable to pharmacies and consumers in townships, suburbs, towns, and cities anywhere in the country digitally.
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It has been two years of non-stop work to create a service that enables pharmacies and consumers to engage with each other digitally, securely, and conveniently, beyond the confines of the pharmacies’ brick-and-mortar stores. We’ve managed to make advances thanks in part to our pharmacy partners and the Independent Community Pharmacy Association”.
The owner recently admitted that the startup hasn’t spent much on its advertising and marketing campaign as it has been mostly word of mouth. He has also stated that the startup has plans of advancing internationally but doesn’t have plans to expand now as they want to alleviate the problems in South Africa first.
Jezile in a statement said:”In other African countries, access to affordable healthcare is an even larger issue than here in South Africa. To be part of the solution, we have started engaging with other health-tech startups in our neighboring African countries and exploring how we can assist in enhancing their services and helping them on their mission.
We firmly believe a joint effort is the better approach to solving these ever-growing healthcare challenges our continent faces even if it means making room for other businesses.
Healthcare is a huge problem, our goal is to provide value first, and it’s been very cool to meet people who are open-minded and eager to solve the challenges in the industry”.
Benefits of Telemedicine to the populace
Telemedicine is a term that is used to describe the methods a patient and doctor can communicate with each other with being in the same room. These methods include phone calls, video calls, Etc. Here are the benefits of Telemedicine for doctors and patients:
1) Easy and quick access to specialists:
Patients in times of emergencies can now contact specialists to receive medical advice before the paramedics arrive, and people can now contact specialists in their sick beds to receive consultations at any time of the day.
2) Lower Cost:
Since people can now contact specialists from home, they can save on the cost of transportation to the hospital and other expenses.
3) Quick access to specialists from rural areas:
There might be emergencies such as a hailstorm or snowstorm which may prevent patients from going out to meet a specialist at that moment, telemedicine has made it easy for them as they can just with their smartphone contact a specialist for immediate medical consultations.
4) Quick access to people in the urban areas:
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, visiting hospitals could be a very big risk to the patients and most doctors and specialists are out treating patients infected with the virus; seeing a medical practitioner physically could be very difficult which shows the need for telemedicine as you can be assured that on various platforms such as BusyMed there are specialists available to you at any time of the day.
5) Babies care in the middle of the night:
Babies are prone to having spiking fevers late at night and going out to a hospital at such time of the day could be dangerous for both the child and the parent, most parents might search online from unreliable sources hence endangering the baby’s health instead use telehealth services to contact a doctor who could give you method and procedures to follow to curb such incidents.
6) Childcare becomes less of a priority:
When parents fall sick especially if it is a single parents, they might want their wards to accompany them to the hospital hence they hire the services of a nanny to take care of the child which would cost money but with telehealth, you could receive your prescription and the desired drugs at the comfort of your homes which also helps you in saving the money you would have used for paying for a nanny.
7) Can contact specialists when they are home:
Due to the COVID-10 pandemic, most doctors are at home either through the closure of their office or they have been given reduced hours at their place of work which means that there are more doctors available on telehealth services to attend to your medical issue.
Conclusion
Lack of urgent medical healthcare and consultations has sent many to their early graves and the Covid-19 has worsened the situation with the lockdown measures restricting free movement, but the help of telemedicine offered by BusyMed has helped to curb the increasing lack of access to medical personnel as one can contact a medical practitioner and be attended to at once.
BusyMed with this strategy is on course to becoming one of the biggest telemedicine companies in Africa.
