Denis Opudo
Many African hospitals have been directing their patients to seek medication abroad maybe because of poor hospital facilities or lack of professionalism to handle various diseases. But is it just a walk in the park to get the medication abroad? For those who have been through the process will simply tell you it’s not easy to get more so if you are just an ordinary citizen.
The case is not different in Rwanda. Most of the Rwandan citizens who have been directed to have medication overseas have to go through agents of various international Hospitals. The agents will come with their price quotations while others depend on friends or relatives to book for appointments. This will obviously consume a lot of time and money putting the life of a patient at risk.
A local startup in Rwanda by the name Infinite Health International (iHi) Ltd has come up with an online medical appointment and travel platform, and it will open around ten offices around the continent at the start of 2017. The company is the only one offering the services in the whole of Africa, and it will offer a link between patients and more than 100 specialized hospitals all over the world.
The moment a patient has been recommended to have specialized treatment, the company offers them a variety of options from their database of main hospitals both local and international. That gives patients an option of choosing on the affordable hospital of their choice by comparing the prices.
The firm makes traveling and accommodation easy by working with some airlines and hotels at slightly lower rates. Medical consultations begin the patient immediately selects a preferred hospital, and the consultation is done by specialists via video talks and other private charts. This gives a specialist background knowledge on the patient’s status giving room for adequate and early preparations. Best In Class Care can be used by patients who have health insurance cover. Some stakeholders in the health sectors have lauded the initiative and said that it would help in reducing the number of high death rates experienced in the country and Africa as a whole.
